Videoconferencing lets families visit Va. prison inmates

For the five years Tori Chisholm has been held in a mountaintop prison near the Kentucky border, there haven't been many visitors from back home in Richmond.

It was snowing in Big Stone Gap on Jan. 2 when he sat down inside Wallens Ridge State Prison and began talking with his mother, Lisa Chisholm, and his 17-year-old brother, Rashawn Brathwaite.

But Chisholm's family did not have to drive six or seven hours from Richmond's East End for the one-hour visit.

Instead, they took advantage of a videoconferencing program started by New Canaan International Church in Henrico County, which allowed them to see and speak with one another while almost 400 miles apart.

The Virginia Department of Corrections is allowing the program to expand to nine other prisons -- at no cost to taxpayers.

The Rev. Owen C. Cardwell Jr., pastor of the church at 1708 Byron St., said that "to the best of our knowledge, we're the only [faith-based] program like this in the nation."

The church has been using donated equipment and charging $30 for a one-hour visit and $15 for 30 minutes to help cover the costs.

In a high-security prison such as Wallens Ridge, using a live video connection enables inmates and "visitors" to see and hear one another as well as -- if not better than -- during in-person visits conducted through clear, but solid, plexiglass windows using phones.

Since starting the program 3½ years ago, New Canaan and two other churches now involved have arranged 650 video visits between Wallens Ridge inmates and their families.

The cost for the video visits is considerably less than that of daylong drives and overnight stays often needed to visit some of Virginia's more remote, high-security prisons.

"It's taken a long time to pull this together," Cardwell said.

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The program grew out of efforts to assist youths and later adults behind bars. The equipment was donated by a company in Massachusetts, and new equipment has been donated by Wachovia.

"It's sort of like penicillin and sticky notes -- it happened by accident," Cardwell said.

The other two churches now offering visits are Shiloh Baptist Church in Alexandria and Norfolk United Methodist Church.

On Saturday, the churches were also to offer video visits for families of inmates at the James River Correctional Center and later the Powhatan and Augusta correctional centers and the Fluvanna Correctional Center for Women.

Assisting Families of Inmates Inc., based at Second Presbyterian Church at 5 N. Fifth St. in Richmond, were authorized to start video visits Saturday for families of inmates at Keen Mountain Correctional Center in Buchanan County.

Fran Bolin, the program's executive director, said they will be doing video visits later with inmates at the Bland and Pocahontas correctional centers, the Virginia Correctional Center for Women, and Red Onion State Prison.

They have been assisted by a $20,000 grant from The Community Foundation Serving Richmond and Central Virginia.

Bolin said a round-trip drive from Richmond to Red Onion in Wise County is 744 miles. Factoring in mileage, meals and lodging, an in-person visit there could cost hundreds of dollars, making the $15 and $30 fees a bargain, she said.

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Assisting Families of Inmates has been arranging bus visits from Richmond to various state prisons for 30 years. In the 1990s, it arranged for video visits between families in Virginia and inmates sent to Texas to relieve prison overcrowding here.

Some of the group's buses go to prisons where video visits are starting to be arranged. Bolin thinks family members can get in more visits with inmates at those prisons via video "and get that hug in" by taking bus rides.

The inmate starts the process by applying for visits at his or her prison. The inmate must have a good disciplinary record and meet all other prison requirements.

Applications are sent to visitors, and up to five visitors are allowed at a time.

"We schedule the visit and then send the information back to the prison for further arrangements," Cardwell said.

Larry Traylor, spokesman for the Department of Corrections, said that in addition to helping families, video visitations help inmates. Visits help ease tensions, and long periods without visits can increase the problems of inmates.

"The program has been successful at Wallens Ridge, and we felt that the good results we had there warranted expansion to other prisons, on a pilot basis," he said. All such visits are recorded, he said.

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The video visits also can generate a surprising sense of intimacy, as demonstrated by Chisholm's recent visit with his family, during which he scolded his brother for his demeanor.

"If you didn't want to come, you could have stayed home," Chisholm snapped at Brathwaite. "I ain't coming here to see your attitude or you just be slumping down. You look me in my eyes. You my brother."

Brathwaite apologized and explained: "I don't like seeing you like this, man. I don't like seeing you like this. I don't."

The video arrangement also allows for more privacy for the family. Lisa Chisholm, sitting next to Brathwaite, asked him to consider his brother's feelings.

"He don't want to see you sitting here frowning. . . . You think I like to see him like this?"

Chisholm, 23, is serving 47 years for 20 felonies stemming from gang-related robberies in Henrico when he was a juvenile. He is hoping to be transferred to a prison closer to Richmond.

Contact Frank Green at (804) 649-6340 or .