By C1 Staff
DENTON COUNTY, Texas — A company that provides video visitation to correctional facilities and a county jail are facing lawsuits for surreptitiously ending in-person visitation earlier this year.
The Dallas Observer reports that the Denton County Jail ended in-person visitation on January 31 of this year, replacing it with Securus Technologies’ video chats.
A Denton law firm recently announced that it would be filing a class action lawsuit against Securus for the way it words its contracts with counties signing up for video visitation.
One attorney accused Securus of giving itself a monopoly on jail visitation through anti-competitive contractual tactics.
A second lawsuit was recently filed by the family of an inmate names Securus, Denton County, the sheriff’s office and the Texas Commission on Jail Standards as defendants.
Securus Technologies prices for video visitation vary from county to county, but there have been complaints against the idea of forcing inmate families to pay for contact with their inmate loved ones.
Recently Dallas County has been in negotiations with Securus Technologies, where advocates pushed back against the idea of getting rid of in-person visitation completely. The county promised that in-person visitation would not be eliminated in favor of the video visitation.