EXPLAINER

Federal rules ended jail commissions on video visits. Marion County's visiting room is still closed.

What changed this spring, what it means for families paying for screen time, and the questions it raises for the county budget and the next sheriff.

By Kate Vale · September 26, 2026

When the Marion County Adult Detention Center opened in 2022, families were told video-only visits were temporary. Four years later, the Sheriff's Office still lists in-person visits for attorneys and professionals only. Friends and family get a screen, through a private company called ViaPath (formerly Global Tel*Link), sold under the name GettingOut.

My son lives with serious mental illness and spent nine months in that jail. In those nine months our family never had a single visit with him, in person or by video. I saw him only in brief glimpses across a courtroom at his few hearings. When he was moved to state prison, I could visit him in person again.

This spring, the federal rules governing the money behind jail calls and video visits changed. Here is what happened, in plain language, and what we still do not know.

How family visits work at the Marion County jail

According to the Sheriff's Office visitation page:

Family and friends visit by remote video only, through GettingOut/ViaPath. The office "will no longer conduct 'walk-in' visits."
Visits must be scheduled one to four days ahead.
A visit canceled less than 24 hours ahead counts as completed, with no refund.
Repeated no-shows can lead to a suspension of visits.
Visits are recorded and monitored.

The page does not list a price.

For a person in a psychiatric crisis, a scheduled appointment on a screen, with penalties for missing it, can be very hard to keep.

What the federal rules changed

On January 5, 2023, President Biden signed the Martha Wright-Reed Act into law. It is named for a grandmother who spent years fighting the cost of calls to her incarcerated grandson. It gave the Federal Communications Commission authority over in-state calls and video calls from prisons and jails, which it had not clearly held before.

The FCC wrote rules in 2024, suspended them in 2025, and issued revised rules in October 2025. The revised rules:

Ban site commissions. A site commission is the cut of each call or video visit that a phone company pays back to the jail. Those payments are no longer allowed.
Cap prices. For jails holding 1,000 or more people, which includes Marion County's, the cap is 10 cents a minute for phone calls and 19 cents a minute for video.
Allow a small facility fee of 2 cents a minute to cover costs such as monitoring.

The rules were published on December 5, 2025, and the price caps and the commission ban took effect on April 6, 2026. Advocates for incarcerated people have asked a federal appeals court to review the rules, arguing the new caps are set too high; those petitions were combined in the D.C. Circuit in December 2025.

What we still do not know about Marion County

How much the county received from families' calls and video visits between the jail's opening in 2022 and April 2026.
Whether any money still flows back another way. In April 2025, Allen County's commissioners approved a ViaPath amendment that, according to a summary of the meeting, gave up commissions on calls and video visits but kept a share of what people spend on tablet purchases such as messages, music and games.
Who decided video-only visits would continue, and whether the new jail was built with space for family visits.

On September 25, I asked the Sheriff's Office, under Indiana's public records law, for the ViaPath contract, the revenue records, the Sheriff's commissary fund reports, and any memo establishing video-only visits. I will publish what comes back.

Why this matters now

If revenue was ever part of the reason to keep families on screens, that reason has shrunk. If it never was, families deserve to hear the real reason.

The City-County Council holds its public hearing on the 2027 budget, including the Sheriff's Office, on October 5, and votes on October 19. Voters elect a new sheriff on November 3, and the new sheriff takes office January 1. I have asked both candidates, Tom Vaughn and Kelvis Williams, in writing whether they will restore in-person family visits, and by when. I will publish their answers here as they arrive.

The Indiana Department of Correction lets families visit in person and offers video for people who cannot travel. Families in Marion County are asking for the same arrangement: video as an option, with the visiting room open too.

What should change

The Sheriff's Office should publish its ViaPath contract and what the county has received from it since 2022.
The City-County Council should ask the Sheriff's Office, as part of the 2027 budget, for a plan and timeline to restore in-person family visits, starting with people in the jail's mental health units.
Both candidates for sheriff should tell voters before November 3 whether they will restore in-person visits, and by when.
Video visits should stay, as one choice among two.

If you want to weigh in before October 5, send a short written comment to your City-County Councilor. You do not need to have a loved one in the jail to care how it is run.

Sources

Kate Vale, a mother in the gallery