I agree that “The Personal Touch” (July 29) is crucial to families of men and women who are incarcerated.
Every study has found that building and maintaining bonds with loved ones is a key to successfully coming home after incarceration. Contact visits where families and friends can be near one another do not take the place of being at home, but they are a crucial reminder of how things can be.
“Non-contact visits” — where children and loved ones are separated from the incarcerated person by a glass barrier and usually must shout over a not-very-good “phone” while sitting close to others doing the same — is a poor second best. If “non-contact visits” aren’t bad enough, there is now “video visitation” which eliminates even non-contact visits.
This is what Bristol County Sheriff Thomas Hodgson is about to begin. In Hodgson’s jail, families will go to a trailer just outside the jail, and make a video call to their loved one. Supposedly, this is for the health and safety of families and prisoners; actually it is for the convenience of Hodgson and the people who work for him at the jail.
Thankfully, on learning of this new scheme by Hodgson, state Sen. Mark Montigny, D-New Bedford, introduced S1335 which states: “Any correctional or penal institution in the commonwealth that elects to use video or other types of electronic devices for inmate visitations shall also provide inmates with in-person visitation.”
Please contact your elected official and ask for their support of S1335. Tell them you do not want your tax dollars to pay for a jail which is counterproductive and harmful to thousands of families.
Lois Ahrens
Northampton
The writer is the founding director of the Northampton-based Real Cost of Prisons Project.