Video calls for Alicante prisoners

Prisoners in the Fontcalent and Villena prisons have been making video calls to their families, it emerged this week. The inmates have already made more than 3000 calls to family members using a smartphone provided by prison governors.
So far, inmates at Fontcalent and Villena have not suffered an outbreak of Covid-19 but prisoners are missing out on regular family visits which, during the state of alarm, were suspended to prevent potential contagion among the prison population. The lack of family contact has left a tense atmosphere among prisoners so to alleviate this, prison officials supplied smartphones to all prisons in Spain in order that inmates could make video calls to their families or to their lawyers. Reports indicate that so far, the initiative has been a complete success and has offered some degree of reassurance to both inmates and their families during the state of alarm.
In less than a month using the new equipment, inmates at Fontcalent have made over a thousand video calls. In Villena, where around 1200 prisoners are held, 2000 vidoe calls have been made and at the prison Psychiatric Hospital, with 270 patient inmates, around 200 calls have been made.
Fontcalent prison, the nearest prison facility to the Vega Baja area, has three smartphone terminals in use by inmates under supervision and officials have just received two more.
The director of Fontcalent confirmed that the measure has been a complete success. Santiago De las Heras revealed that the first inmate who used the service “burst into tears” seeing his wife and family’s faces on the phone. In fact, there were many more tears from other inmates, many relieved to see elderly relatives in good health.
There are around 600 inmates in Fontalent and all have the right to request a video call. Many of the inmates are originally from countries other than Spain and now are able to communicate and see family members from home – something which before Coronavirus was impossible. In fact, one of the foreign inmates is serving a long sentence and because of the video call was able to see family members whom he has not seen in ten years.
The calls are made in the call booths where, until the state of alarm was imposed, the inmates would have received visits from relatives. Calls are carried out under strict security and sanitary protocol. Inmates choose a number from a pre authorised list (abusers, for example, are not allowed to phone their victims) and they are allowed a ten minute video call before the phone is cleaned and used for the next call. Video calls take place between 9am and 1pm and from 5pm to 7pm. The calls are made under the supervision of a guard to ensure there is no misuse of the terminal.