Because of their proximity to Disney World and tourists from all over the world, establishing interpretive services at one court in Florida that does a great deal of interpretive services for courtroom proceedings was particularly challenging. “One of the biggest problems is that there are not enough interpreters out there to handle the growing case loads and the cost for outsourcing to a language interpretation service is prohibitive,” says Daniel Stewart, senior justice advisor with Cisco Connected Justice Systems.
Most outsourced language services charge a four-hour minimum, plus travel expenses, so it gets very expensive, he continues. Instead of incurring the cost for these outsourced services, or having full-time interpreters running between courtrooms and jails, they can hook up via videoconferencing and can quickly connect with different courts around the county or even the state, he says. “Now they can sign on at 10 am, do the interpretation for ten-fifteen minutes and move on to the next case. The cost savings are incredible.”
With continually increasing court, parole and probation case loads, numerous other courts are heading in that direction also.
In Kentucky, Logan County jailer Bill Jenkins reported last summer that inmates in the jail would soon get to go through their parole hearings via teleconference. Jenkins said that then, whenever an inmate at his jail came up for parole, a deputy had to drive the prisoner to the hearing at the Green River Correctional Complex in Muhlenberg County.
“They usually leave about 6 a.m. and don’t get back until noon,” Jenkins said in the News-Democratic & Leader. “So that ties up an employee for about six hours whenever it happens.”
And, he added, when the inmates go to the hearing at Green River, they don’t get to see the parole board directly anyway. The inmate is kept in a separate room and just sees the board via a television monitor. The jail was expecting the new video system to save them a great deal in transport costs.
Another agency some 500 miles southeast has been conducting its hearings via real-time high speed phone lines since 1997. Board members, who come to the S.C. Board of Parole and Pardons’ Central Office in Columbia, are able to see inmates present their testimony from seven different prisons, according to the state’s web site. Victims also are able come to Columbia and present their testimony to the Parole Board; they may also attend parole hearings by remote videoconferencing at the Charleston and Spartanburg Remote Videoconferencing Sites.
This arrangement, they point out, saves the Department of Corrections significant amounts of money in transportation costs and security. In addition, victims are not physically in the same location as the inmate who victimized them.
Videoconferencing is growing in all aspects of criminal justice from police to probation to juvenile justice, according to Cisco Connected Justice Solutions. It markets its WebEx TelePresence system to criminal justice for applications such as delivering e-warrants to squad cars, arraignments, remote appearances, remote interpretation and more. The company has deployments in the San Antonio, Texas, courts, several county courts in Florida and in several federal prisons.
Behind the Scenes
Recent cutbacks in corrections have significantly impacted probation and parole. They must grow to take up the slack—and technology must help bridge the gap. Because of several factors that reduce costs, investment in videoconferencing technology pays for itself more quickly than ever. “The return on investment is much more achievable today,” says Stewart of Cisco.
The almost immediate ROI is due to the wide availability of videoconferencing equipment, the drop in prices of this hardware and the ability to use an standard high speed Internet connection. While using ISDN was expensive 10 yrs ago, “riding across the Internet is free,” points out Stewart. “The Internet has allowed users to be able to reduce their costs significantly,”.
Specifying open standards in equipment is also important so that devices will be able to talk to those you hope to connect with. “We believe in open standards,” says Stewart. “Our competitors can communicate with our equipment.”
When counties or state agencies have existing equipment, they must be able to leverage it to communicate with other agencies or individuals, he says. He points out, “[a vendor] cannot cause them to change overnight because you think you have a better product.”
Getting Personal
A change making inroads in the business world may impact courts too, he opines. According to a study conducted in March 2013 by a group of Cisco partner firms, 90% of full-time American workers use their personal smart phones for work purposes. The report says it’s “a staggering finding that validates a trend industry experts have been debating for several years now: Bring Your Own Device or BYOD.”
BYOD, an approach whereby those that connect with the system can be enabled to bring their own iPad, android phone, or any other end point device, will allow them to talk to the video end point the offender is using. If players such as judges, lawyers, probation officers, and victims are able to seamlessly connect with the courts via their own devices it will only quicken the pace that can lead to an explosion of video conferencing use.
Best Uses
Some applications are catching on more quickly than others. One such use is the application of videoconferencing in pre-sentence investigation, or PSI, notes Stewart. The probation officer/probationer interview can take up to an hour, but the Court doesn’t know exactly how long it will take, which leads to escort waiting times and delays between hearings. Use of video allows processing inmates’ scheduled appearance time on the fly, reducing waiting time. “This is an area where there is a 30 percent to 40 percent gain in productivity,” Stewart says.
Videoconferencing is becoming relevant in remote areas where legal representation is scarce, providing defendants better and immediate representation from a distance. It can also be applied well during the inmate intake classification process to correctly assess an offender with a suicide risk, or to properly take the medical/mental history.
It is also ideal for American Sign Language interpretation where deaf clients need fair access to the legal system. In a recent lawsuit, reports Newsday.com, three Long Island medical facilities are being sued because they didn’t communicate with a deaf patient, Alfred Weinrib, and his family. Because of lack of interpretive services, when he died last April he did not have knowledge of his cancer diagnosis.
His children claim in the federal lawsuit filed in February in U.S. District Court in Central Islip that the family's requests for qualified interpreters and services such as a video phone were routinely denied in the seven months he was treated.
Upping the Ante
While videoconferencing is taking a bigger role in courtrooms across the country, a piece of software is helping do some of the housekeeping. Renovo Software collaborates with video systems, including Cisco’s, to add automation and scheduling capabilities to the video platform. This software can automate all pieces of equipment that need to work for a regularly recurring conference, i.e., at a weekly set time. The software automates all those pieces of equipment and is the interface to manage the devices, explains Drew Barrette, Renovo’s marketing manager. “It has the ability to set up certain rules and policies, such as who can’t visit with a minor, [etc].”
Its courtroom capabilities check hardware, and manage the above mentioned policies and staff tasks. For example, it can remind an officer with an email or text notification to bring an inmate to court, it can notify the bailiff to prepare for the start of the call, queue it up, and automatically dial into the interpretation service, or note confidentially on the call. On the inmate side, the software can display all upcoming court appearances or video calls scheduled. Meanwhile all the calls can be monitored, recorded and reports run.
Into the future, technological compatibility not only between the jails and courts but between other devices will be key, adds Barrette. Software development with open standards will provide “so much potential” to incorporate the latest devices.
Families and friends already connect to corrections facilities via the Internet with consumer products like webcams, laptops and potentially cell phones, Barrette furthers. It’s conceivable in the near future they will be doing video chats over the Internet to a court or a jail from a public place like the library. As of now, Renovo’s court customers are not using video conferencing for parole applications but could, he says, with “very little development.”
With the cutbacks in funding as we go forward, technology is expected to fill the vacuum in courtrooms across the U.S. “They must reduce their operations overall,” notes Stewart. “We have to give them tools to achieve that.” CT
Most outsourced language services charge a four-hour minimum, plus travel expenses, so it gets very expensive, he continues. Instead of incurring the cost for these outsourced services, or having full-time interpreters running between courtrooms and jails, they can hook up via videoconferencing and can quickly connect with different courts around the county or even the state, he says. “Now they can sign on at 10 am, do the interpretation for ten-fifteen minutes and move on to the next case. The cost savings are incredible.”
With continually increasing court, parole and probation case loads, numerous other courts are heading in that direction also.
In Kentucky, Logan County jailer Bill Jenkins reported last summer that inmates in the jail would soon get to go through their parole hearings via teleconference. Jenkins said that then, whenever an inmate at his jail came up for parole, a deputy had to drive the prisoner to the hearing at the Green River Correctional Complex in Muhlenberg County.
“They usually leave about 6 a.m. and don’t get back until noon,” Jenkins said in the News-Democratic & Leader. “So that ties up an employee for about six hours whenever it happens.”
And, he added, when the inmates go to the hearing at Green River, they don’t get to see the parole board directly anyway. The inmate is kept in a separate room and just sees the board via a television monitor. The jail was expecting the new video system to save them a great deal in transport costs.
Another agency some 500 miles southeast has been conducting its hearings via real-time high speed phone lines since 1997. Board members, who come to the S.C. Board of Parole and Pardons’ Central Office in Columbia, are able to see inmates present their testimony from seven different prisons, according to the state’s web site. Victims also are able come to Columbia and present their testimony to the Parole Board; they may also attend parole hearings by remote videoconferencing at the Charleston and Spartanburg Remote Videoconferencing Sites.
This arrangement, they point out, saves the Department of Corrections significant amounts of money in transportation costs and security. In addition, victims are not physically in the same location as the inmate who victimized them.
Videoconferencing is growing in all aspects of criminal justice from police to probation to juvenile justice, according to Cisco Connected Justice Solutions. It markets its WebEx TelePresence system to criminal justice for applications such as delivering e-warrants to squad cars, arraignments, remote appearances, remote interpretation and more. The company has deployments in the San Antonio, Texas, courts, several county courts in Florida and in several federal prisons.
Behind the Scenes
Recent cutbacks in corrections have significantly impacted probation and parole. They must grow to take up the slack—and technology must help bridge the gap. Because of several factors that reduce costs, investment in videoconferencing technology pays for itself more quickly than ever. “The return on investment is much more achievable today,” says Stewart of Cisco.
The almost immediate ROI is due to the wide availability of videoconferencing equipment, the drop in prices of this hardware and the ability to use an standard high speed Internet connection. While using ISDN was expensive 10 yrs ago, “riding across the Internet is free,” points out Stewart. “The Internet has allowed users to be able to reduce their costs significantly,”.
Specifying open standards in equipment is also important so that devices will be able to talk to those you hope to connect with. “We believe in open standards,” says Stewart. “Our competitors can communicate with our equipment.”
When counties or state agencies have existing equipment, they must be able to leverage it to communicate with other agencies or individuals, he says. He points out, “[a vendor] cannot cause them to change overnight because you think you have a better product.”
Getting Personal
A change making inroads in the business world may impact courts too, he opines. According to a study conducted in March 2013 by a group of Cisco partner firms, 90% of full-time American workers use their personal smart phones for work purposes. The report says it’s “a staggering finding that validates a trend industry experts have been debating for several years now: Bring Your Own Device or BYOD.”
BYOD, an approach whereby those that connect with the system can be enabled to bring their own iPad, android phone, or any other end point device, will allow them to talk to the video end point the offender is using. If players such as judges, lawyers, probation officers, and victims are able to seamlessly connect with the courts via their own devices it will only quicken the pace that can lead to an explosion of video conferencing use.
Best Uses
Some applications are catching on more quickly than others. One such use is the application of videoconferencing in pre-sentence investigation, or PSI, notes Stewart. The probation officer/probationer interview can take up to an hour, but the Court doesn’t know exactly how long it will take, which leads to escort waiting times and delays between hearings. Use of video allows processing inmates’ scheduled appearance time on the fly, reducing waiting time. “This is an area where there is a 30 percent to 40 percent gain in productivity,” Stewart says.
Videoconferencing is becoming relevant in remote areas where legal representation is scarce, providing defendants better and immediate representation from a distance. It can also be applied well during the inmate intake classification process to correctly assess an offender with a suicide risk, or to properly take the medical/mental history.
It is also ideal for American Sign Language interpretation where deaf clients need fair access to the legal system. In a recent lawsuit, reports Newsday.com, three Long Island medical facilities are being sued because they didn’t communicate with a deaf patient, Alfred Weinrib, and his family. Because of lack of interpretive services, when he died last April he did not have knowledge of his cancer diagnosis.
His children claim in the federal lawsuit filed in February in U.S. District Court in Central Islip that the family's requests for qualified interpreters and services such as a video phone were routinely denied in the seven months he was treated.
Upping the Ante
While videoconferencing is taking a bigger role in courtrooms across the country, a piece of software is helping do some of the housekeeping. Renovo Software collaborates with video systems, including Cisco’s, to add automation and scheduling capabilities to the video platform. This software can automate all pieces of equipment that need to work for a regularly recurring conference, i.e., at a weekly set time. The software automates all those pieces of equipment and is the interface to manage the devices, explains Drew Barrette, Renovo’s marketing manager. “It has the ability to set up certain rules and policies, such as who can’t visit with a minor, [etc].”
Its courtroom capabilities check hardware, and manage the above mentioned policies and staff tasks. For example, it can remind an officer with an email or text notification to bring an inmate to court, it can notify the bailiff to prepare for the start of the call, queue it up, and automatically dial into the interpretation service, or note confidentially on the call. On the inmate side, the software can display all upcoming court appearances or video calls scheduled. Meanwhile all the calls can be monitored, recorded and reports run.
Into the future, technological compatibility not only between the jails and courts but between other devices will be key, adds Barrette. Software development with open standards will provide “so much potential” to incorporate the latest devices.
Families and friends already connect to corrections facilities via the Internet with consumer products like webcams, laptops and potentially cell phones, Barrette furthers. It’s conceivable in the near future they will be doing video chats over the Internet to a court or a jail from a public place like the library. As of now, Renovo’s court customers are not using video conferencing for parole applications but could, he says, with “very little development.”
With the cutbacks in funding as we go forward, technology is expected to fill the vacuum in courtrooms across the U.S. “They must reduce their operations overall,” notes Stewart. “We have to give them tools to achieve that.” CT
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