PHILADELPHIA – The Philadelphia Department of Prisons (PDP) is pleased to announce that, after intensive work by the PDP team on our technical infrastructure, we are now able to further expand virtual official visit capability. Further, as of December 15, video visitation will be available for family/friends of PDP inmates. Information regarding both initiatives follows below.
Virtual Official Visit Expansion
As announced in the beginning of October, the Curran Fromhold Correctional Facility (CFCF) began using a new platform installed by the PDP’s phone services provider, which allowed far greater availability for attorneys to meet virtually with their clients at the PDP. That same platform will now be available at the Philadelphia Industrial Correctional Center (PICC), Detention Center (DC), Alternative Special Detention Center Unit (ASDCU) and Alternative Special Detention Modular III (Mod 3), beginning this Wednesday, November 25. The only facility not yet ready will be the Riverside Correctional Facility (RCF) building itself, which, due to more intensive infrastructure work that is needed, will be ready on Tuesday, December 8.
If individual attorneys have already completed the registration process, no further action is needed. If already registered, attorneys can simply follow the same process to visit inmates at the other PDP facilities. If not already registered, there is a registration process that must be completed by individual attorneys before using the new platform. Instructions have been sent to representatives of the Defenders Office, the First Judicial District and the private bar accordingly.
Attorneys will continue to be able to use the video visitation process already in place at the other PDP facilities until the new platform is ready and when RCF becomes available on December 8.
PDP Family/Friends Video Visitation
The Philadelphia Department of Prisons (PDP) is also pleased to announce that, after completing the technical infrastructure at all PDP facilities, and additional processing that needs to be completed, family/friends video visitation will be available on December 15.
The platform which will allow for family/friends video visitation is operated through e-mail addresses being registered on the GettingOut Visits app on a smartphone or tablet. Therefore, all PDP inmates will be given a form to provide the e-mail addresses of five (5) family/friends to be placed into the system to allow for video visitation. This matches the number of names PDP inmates may provide for their phone call list. The advance entry of e-mail addresses is necessary to prepare for making the video visitation available on Tuesday, December 15.
Due to the technical infrastructure which must be completed as well as the time to facilitate the above process, family/friends video visitation will be available to commence on Tuesday, December 15.
Once it is ready to commence, video visitation will then be an available option for family and friends of PDP inmates, with two (2) free fifteen (15) minute virtual visits for each inmate weekly. Family and loved ones will then be able to meet with PDP inmates virtually.
Further, beyond the two (2) free video visits weekly, PDP inmates will be able to order an additional thirty (30) minutes per week of video calling time at a cost of 25 cents per minute, $7.50 if the entire thirty (30) minutes is used. The PDP inmate will only be charged for the minutes that are used.
Instructions regarding using the family/friends video visitation process are attached here. Again, family/friends video visits will be available on Tuesday, December 15.
PDP inmates will continue to receive an extra five (5) minutes of free phone calls per day for a total of fifteen (15) free phone call minutes per day through February 2021. The longstanding ten (10) free phone calls per day will remain in effect thereafter.