January 26, 2024
SIFC members in attendance: Clara Garcia, Allison Walters, Clara Garcia, Linda Finney, Cindy Jackson, and Staci Parish-Phillips.
Meeting was brought to order and facilitated by Dan Ross. In attendance: Carlos Santos and Theresa Ross. Clara was welcomed and introduced as the new SIFC Chairperson.
General Population Males – Tablets
Tablet demonstration – Mike Paterson, Director of business development, Stephanie Jones, and the team from ViaPath took SIFC through the tablet experience for the incarcerated person. Examples included how to subscribe to podcasts, music, and movies. Examples of the process of messaging, phone calls, and video calls.
There is a two-pin login for security. Upon login, announcements and important information for the incarceration population will automatically pop up, once acknowledged, the user can move forward. These popups are saved and can be accessed on demand. Local announcements are also posted on the tablets, such as this example: Building 4 will be undergoing maintenance. Incarcerated people can then go into their inbox and follow the progress.
There is a limit of requests or tickets for service that the incarcerated person can log.
Individuals can see their account balance on their tablets and transfer to pay for subscriptions. Transfers are limited to once a day and up to a total of $500. Balance may not show transfer for a day.
Each time an incarcerated changes profiles from one function to the next the individual needs to relog in for security measures. All incarcerated people can research Lexis-Nexis on their tablets.
There is a 24-hour clock on the tablets, it is not to indicate minutes left for phone calls, but rather minutes left in the 24-hour day. Other institutions outside of California do pay for minutes, so the clock is used differently for those institutions, it is not applicable for CDCR institutions.
Free messages are shown on the bottom of your account. The free messages are always used first. Incarcerated people can print only photos, not documents. They can print for a fee in both black and white and color.
For video calls, make sure both applications, Getting Out and Go Visits have notifications set to on to ensure families can be notified when a video call comes in. During video calls, the application must be open.
Tablet Distribution Delays – Samantha Boxall
There is a spreadsheet for each institution of how many tablets need to be fixed, and how many an institution is short. Currently there is still a supply issue. The wait time for tablets for new arrivals is averaging about two months but the goal is to get it in under 2 weeks. CDCR is updated weekly on the status.
Question: Why are the tablets dedicated to the facility rather than the individual? Answer: Each facility has its own network, and the tablets talk to the network. Once a person moves prisons, they turn the tablet in to be cleaned of contents and reassigned, however, to reassign a tablet to a different facility is more laborious because not all facilities have the same network type.
CDCR had to change applications because some wireless carriers were spam blocking the calls due to the number, 713, is a Texas number originating out of California. Changing to a California phone number, 916, solved the blocking of calls but the quality is still being worked on. Phone calls are running around $2,000,000 a month for CDCR.
Concerns that incarcerated people that are new to the institution are getting priority for tablets before existing tickets are being taken care of. CDCR has asked ViaPath to fix or distribute according to oldest first.
Question concerning incarcerated person that receives a tablet that does not work, and his or her ticket is at the end of the list of tickets to address. CDCR suggests the person stays and tries out the tablet before leaving the person handing out tablets.
There have been issues with ViaPath techs quitting for reasons ranging from threats, to understaffing, inability to distribute tables to those that work. ViaPath is working to overcome these factors.
Incarcerated people get 20 free texts per week. Some did not get their free texts for several weeks and when they did, they only got 20 instead of retro weeks of missing free texts. This is being investigated.
State level regulations for tablets have been finished.
Incarcerated people on C status do have their tablets but only receive the basic informational service, no premium service.
Why haven’t movies and T.V. series changed, they only rotate with no new titles being added? CDCR is aware of the movies and series not being changed out. It is a matter of buying rights for more movies and further series, however, once the new contract is in place, this area will be addressed.
The new contract, once it is finished and active, will include the details that were not addressed in the current contract such as non-performance, time frame of distributions, and new content amongst other things.
Question: Can the institutions with Hospice units have tablets assigned to the unit itself, because many of the incoming hospice patients come from other institutions? Currently in the hospice units a laptop mounted to a movable cart is used for communications between the family and hospice patient, however there are restrictions that make this service restricted to work hours Monday – Fridays. An authorized staff person must be present. Holidays and weekends make this service problematic. VEST, Video Equipment Scheduling Tool, is used now for scheduling a video chat with a laptop that is wheeled around on a cart. CDCR is going to investigate assigning tablets to the Hospice unit. SIFC asked to have this on the next agenda as an update.
CDCR is aware that the population does not like having to log in over and over while using the tablets, this will be addressed with the new vendor.
Free calls can the time, (15 minutes), be eliminated. CDCR will take under consideration.
Can the message character limit of 2000 be eliminated? CDCR will take under consideration.
Can the phone privilege be expanded to 24 hours instead of turned off at a certain time? CDCR will take under consideration.
Complaints the incarcerated person sending an ecard will be charged a nickel as well as it takes a free message. CDCR will investigate this and hopefully remedy it.
Can the ecards be different for loved ones and incarcerated people. Probably not.
We would like to buy stamps for the incarcerated person like we use to do through Jpay? CDCR will investigate.
New Contract Regarding Tablets – Samantha Boxall
The new contract is still being written. CDCR has taken all our concerns, comments, and suggestions into consideration and the new contract will reflect this and other essential points.
Tablets In Hospice Care – Samantha Boxall
See above.
Office Of Policy Standardization
Alternative food replacement options – Lance Eshelman
Beans…there should never be 3 sections of beans on a plate. Two servings of beans are acceptable. A carbohydrate or starch can be replaced with beans. The Chief of Dietary Services said he does not want to have beans replace protein. All the kitchens have emergency supplies of food that the supervisor can go and get what is needed. Institutions also have the option to contact neighboring facilities to see if they have any leftover food stock. Institutions should first try to replace items with like items before turning to use beans. There is a list that will be provided to SIFC of food substitutions, however the list is limited to only items and their nutritional value. All the information from our meeting will be communicated to food services staff and will also be placed in the food service handbook, which will be updated by next year.
SIFC asks what is the guarantee that this is being done? Mr. Eshelman said with the development of this system, there should be a check & balance/trust & verify. SIFC asks if they could share the results with us once it is in place.
Holiday meals, SIFC asks why some facilities have special menus for the holidays when others do not. Can the holiday menus be standardized? Example given is San Quentin and Avenal did not have any type of special menu for Christmas, while others had great food served such as Folsom. There are four holidays that the institutions can select their menu for: Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Years, and 4th of July. CDCR can put out a recommendation, but they would rather let the institutions decide what they want to order. Cost is considered in their decision; the special meal comes from the prison’s budget.
SIFC asks what is the allowance for meals per individual now? $4.31
Does the food to network program help with feeding the population? No. The network program is not used inside the facilities.
Can more prisons participate in gardening and fresh foods be brought into the kitchen to feed the population? This is something CDCR is looking at and hoping to do, but currently is not. PIA handles all the dairy and farm produce now. CDCR encourages SIFC to reach out to PIA with our concerns and ideas.
Allowable Property Space – Mark Tillotson
Property space will not change. Allowable item changes were done to align more with what the incarcerated females are allowed. State issued clothing & property, legal documents, educational books, medical supplies, and canteen perishable foods are not included in the 6 cubic feet.
Ombudsman Update:
There are currently 7 Ombudsman now and they will be expanding to a total of 8.