IT Staff Improves Young Detainees’ Connection to Family

IT Manager Adrian Gonzalez lead the project at East Mesa Juvenile Detention Facility that successfully installed WiFi so detainees could use Skype.

Using video chatting to allow young people in Probation’s custody to talk with a parent or guardian sounds like it should be an easy task, but it wasn’t. County information technology managers did not let that deter them.

“It’s something we’ve been thinking about for a while and something we wanted to do for some time,” said County Probation Chief Mack Jenkins. “I’m very satisfied that we were able to get over the hurdle on it.”

Ultimately, this is an example of how technology is helping County departments accomplish its goals to serve the public. In this case, it helps Probation keep young people who are in custody connected with their families. Contact with family has a positive impact on many youth’s behavior and gets them better prepared for the transition back to life in the community.

Nearly two years ago, Probation’s division chief at the East Mesa Juvenile Detention Center wondered if it would be possible for staff there to use video chatting to enable online family visits for the detainees. Staff had noticed that some youth never received visitors, and they sent a survey to detainees to find out if video calls could be a solution.

Read how the Skype solution has had a dramatic impact on one detainee’s behavior and outlook.

When IT manager Adrian Gonzalez initially looked into the concept, the cost of installing WiFi and the network security hurdles were both too high. But the technology kept advancing, so Gonzalez and Tralynn Riego de Dios, a department technology specialist for Probation, began to research new options. The increased availability of WiFi had driven costs down, and they were able to introduce the same WiFi system already in use at other County buildings to East Mesa at a low cost.

“What changed between then and now is the increased use of WiFi, and new ways of activating it,” said Gonzalez. “We were trying to find creative ways to solve the special needs for that institution.”

To make the video calls possible, staff set out to find cost-effective equipment that would also be easy enough for both youth and detention center staff placing the calls and monitoring the visits to use, Gonzalez said. Plus the video calls program had to be free to families. And because East Mesa contains concrete and steel walls, a non-commercial WiFi signal had to be placed in a location where it could penetrate that material without having to drill new holes—which would be costly. In the end, Gonzalez found an available area in the conference room in the visiting center.  Eventually, staff settled on Skype because it can run on every kind of device: computers, laptops, smart phones and tablets, he said.

Senior Probation Officer Claudia Legoretta said detention center staff work with parents to help them install the program at home or walks them through setting up an account on a public computer.

Staff looked at all the options and tested them out during the four-month development process, said Gonzalez.

After choosing which equipment to use, staff implemented the final solution in just over a month of work. Since the feature was added in July 2014, between six and 10 detained young people have taken advantage of the Skype visits every week, boosting their morale and improving their behavior.

Riego de Dios helped with the procurement and maintenance of the system, Gonzalez said. She also negotiated for support services in case something goes amiss.

Jenkins said the new reaction has been so positive that Probation would like to expand use of Skype family visits to the department’s other remote locations that house probationers.

“We want to expand it to the juvenile detention camps in the future,” said Jenkins.

Gonzalez, who took the lead on this project, was recently awarded the Probation IT Manager’s Association Employee of the Year. He works in the Public Safety Group, but said in his nearly 34 years at the County, he has worked in nearly every department in an information technology capacity.

A 17-year-old youth at East Mesa Juvenile Detention Facility video chats with his mother in Mexico using Skype.