The county commission gave Sheriff Patrick Ray the go-ahead last week to have video equipment from Securus Technologies installed at the county jail at no cost to the county.
The county is now contracted with Securus for the telephone service that inmates use on a pay-per-call basis to phone relatives from the jail.
Accounts are established between Securus and the family of the incarcerated.
Securus pays a commission to the county for the privilege of providing the service.
"We have a contract with Securus Technologies for our inmate phone service,” Ray said. “They have been our service provider for many years. We sat down with them two or three months ago and talked about video visitation for the inmates at the jail so that the inmates can stay in the cell and not have to be transferred to a different part of the jail for the visitation. The family members will be able to come into an office in the jail and view through a television monitor the inmate in the cell."
Ray said that his department will have the option of offering families video web cam visitation, so that they can see and hear inmates from their homes or other locations.
The video conference system will be linked to the courthouse as well, making video conferencing for trials available.
"Another feature that we're going to have with this is our courtrooms,” Ray said. “ We hope, in the near future, after we get our video equipment in at the jail to have video to the courtrooms where the judge can sit and interact with the inmates by video instead of us having to transport them from the jail up to the courthouse.