A private company could reap tens — and possibly hundreds — of thousands of dollars in revenue from local inmates and their families after the Greene County Jail ended in-person visits this month.

The more than 800 inmates in the jail must now use 20 Telmate tablets to video call family and loved ones.

Rep. Crystal Quade, D-Springfield, said she's had several people reach out to her with concerns about the impact on low-income families.

The News-Leader filed records requests to learn more about how the system works, finding:

Each inmate gets 30 minutes of free tablet use per week, plus free texting;

It costs 25 cents per minute for additional use;

Greene County does not receive any revenue generated when inmates make video calls;

The sheriff's office says it does not know how much revenue Telmate makes from the video call service.

The News-Leader reached out to Telmate on Tuesday, asking how much revenue it generates from tablets in the Greene County Jail.

Telmate declined to provide that information.

If half of the inmates in the Greene County Jail used the tablets to video call friends and family for an additional 30 minutes each week, that adds up to more than $150,000 in revenue a year.

The move from in-person visits to video calls has been in the works for more than a year.

Plans to eliminate in-person visits were first announced at a press conference in May 2017.

Maj. Kevin Spaulding, who oversaw the jail before being fired in December, said at the press conference that there were 25 Telmate tablets available to Greene County inmates.

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The records request found there are now 85 tablets, of which 20 have video call capability.

Spaulding said the tablets are provided by Telmate at no cost to the county.

This video call service saves time and resources for deputies and is also safer, Spaulding said, because inmates don't need to be taken back and forth between their housing area and the visitation area.

It's unclear what will happen to the visitation area.

The News-Leader reached out to a spokesman for the Greene County sheriff for comment about the Telmate system. Cpl. James Craigmyle said he is training dogs for the sheriff's office and would not be available for the next seven to eight weeks.

When asked if there was anyone handling communications in his absence, Craigmyle said no.

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Quade said she has concerns about the switch.

As a social worker, Quade said she knows how important it is for people to maintain relationships with family and loved ones while behind bars.

“Taking away relationships at this level can be very damaging,” Quade said. “...Maintaining those relationships as best we can helps them reintegrate back into society.”

Quade told the News-Leader she has heard a group of citizens is organizing around this issue and that the American Civil Liberties Union has reached out to the sheriff's office.

The ACLU of Missouri confirmed that it has requested and received the sheriff's policies for inmate visitation.

Those documents are publicly available by clicking here.

While Telmate charges 25 cents per minute to make video calls, it appears there are other transaction fees associated with making video calls.

The ACLU said it's aware of video visitation for inmates taking place at the Cape Girardeau County Jail, though the county still allows in-person visits.

Sara Baker, the legislative and policy director of the ACLU, released this statement about the end of in-person visits at the Greene County Jail:

"Prisoners in jail have a better chance of being productive members of society when they are released if they stay connected with their families while they are locked up. We hope that Greene County will look at the long-term effects this policy could have on the community."

While Greene County receives no revenue from video calls, the county receives 25 percent of revenue generated when inmates use the tablets to play games, watch movies and listen to music, according to the records request.

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Greene County has already received more than $40,000 in revenue generated by the tablets since September 2016 — apparently when the tablets were first made available to inmates.

That means Telmate has generated about $160,000 over the same period, roughly $120,000 of which it kept.

The county also contracts with Telmate for phone services in the jail. Telmate pays the county about $22,000 each month, and, in return, Telmate charges inmates for their phone calls.

The current phone rates are:

25 cents a minute for in-state prepaid calls,

50 cents a minute for in-state collect calls,

21 cents a minute for out-of-state prepaid calls,

25 cents a minute for out-of-state collect calls,

67 cents a minute for international calls.

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