By C1 Staff
EL PASO COUNTY, Texas — A $500 video conferencing system set up at the El Paso jail could save the county $4,000 a year in inmate transports, but there has been some reluctance on part of the court to use it.
The El Paso Times reports that Sheriff Richard Wiles has been encouraging the courts to make more use of the system since its installation in 2010 in order to cut down on inmate transportations, which he says are excessive. The jail makes 200 bus trips a year to shuttle inmates to and from the court, at the court’s request.
On top of that, the transports require two to three corrections officers to escort the inmates per trip. Lt. Robert Kaminski Jr, who works at the jail annex, says they’re running upward of six to ten transports a day, which eats up a lot of staff time.
The new technology was implemented in the jail in an effort to cut costs in the jail system, and County Commissioner Vince Perez says he doesn’t understand why judges don’t use the system available to them.
District Judge Patrick Garcia said using video conferencing is not as easy as it sounds, though he did not elaborate.
The system in place is similar to Skype or Google Voice and has been implemented in other courts throughout the nation, including Bexar and Bell counties in Texas.