Communication Services Contract - Wyoming - 2018 (Big Horn County Sheriff's Office) • MuckRock

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Communications

From: Beryl Lipton

05/25/2018

Subject: Wyoming Public Records Act Request: Communication Services Contract - Wyoming - 2018 (Big Horn County Sheriff's Office)

To Whom It May Concern:

Pursuant to the Wyoming Public Records Act, I hereby request the following records:

Contracts and invoices related to the use of communication services at any and all county correctional or detention facility locations under the jurisdiction of this agency. This may encompass telecommunication, kiosk, and mobile tablet services.

Please provide the following relevant materials.

• Any and all open or active Requests for Proposal or similar solicitations regarding the provision, installation, maintenance, or use of communication services. If available or applicable, please also provide equivalent materials for video conferencing equipment and other electronic communication and telecommunication services.

• Any and all active contracts regarding the provision, installation, maintenance, financial requirements, associated commissions, or use of communication services. Please include all associated supplemental materials, including any and all attachments, amendments, and exhibits. Please provide any other materials regarding the terms of service, including the term and expiration date of the current contract, as well as any optional contract extensions. Please include the name of the current telecommunication provider, as well as the services currently being provided pursuant to the agreement. Relevant companies include, but are not limited to, CenturyLink, City Tele Coin, ICSolutions, JPay, and Securus Technologies.

• Any and all financial reports, commission reports, revenue reports, and invoices related to the provision, installation, maintenance, or use of communication services. Please include all usage and fee reports, providing as much segregable data as possible, including, but not limited to, the rate at which the funds were generated, the revenue generated for each service, the timeframe during which the funds were generated, the nature of the communication's payment (collect, prepaid, inmate account), etc. If available, please also provide equivalent materials for video conferencing equipment and other electronic communication and telecommunication services.

Please provide all current contract materials and invoices for the period January 1, 2015 through the date this request is processed.

If this office or agency does not hold arrestees or inmates under its jurisdiction, provision of the entity to whom such individuals are transferred would be greatly appreciated.

The requested documents will be made available to the general public, and this request is not being made for commercial purposes.

In the event that there are fees, I would be grateful if you would inform me of the total charges in advance of fulfilling my request. I would prefer the request filled electronically, by e-mail attachment if available or CD-ROM if not.

Thank you in advance for your anticipated cooperation in this matter. I look forward to receiving your response to this request within 7 business days, as the statute requires.

Sincerely,

Beryl Lipton

From: Beryl Lipton

06/29/2018

Subject: Wyoming Public Records Act Request: Communication Services Contract - Wyoming - 2018 (Big Horn County Sheriff's Office)

To Whom It May Concern:

Pursuant to the Wyoming Public Records Act, I hereby request the following records:

Please provide the following relevant materials.

Please provide all current contract materials and invoices for the period January 1, 2015 through the date this request is processed.

If this office or agency does not hold arrestees or inmates under its jurisdiction, provision of the entity to whom such individuals are transferred would be greatly appreciated.

The requested documents will be made available to the general public, and this request is not being made for commercial purposes.

Thank you in advance for your anticipated cooperation in this matter. I look forward to receiving your response to this request within 7 business days, as the statute requires.

Sincerely,

Beryl Lipton

From: Muckrock Staff

07/06/2018

Subject: RE: Wyoming Public Records Act Request: Communication Services Contract - Wyoming - 2018 (Big Horn County Sheriff's Office)

To Whom It May Concern:

I wanted to follow up on the following Wyoming Public Records Act request, copied below, and originally submitted on May 25, 2018. Please let me know when I can expect to receive a response, or if further clarification is needed.

Thanks for your help, and let me know if further clarification is needed.

From: Big Horn County Sheriff's Office

07/06/2018

Subject: None

To whom it may concern
I sent one response to you earlier.

We have no tablets, kiosks, video visitation, or other communication
visitation contracts.

We have a pay phone in the cell, if an inmate needs to talk privately they
are taken to a phone in our booking area to talk to their attorneys or
families as needed.

Other visitation is done face to face through glass. We have no video
visitation, or teleconferencing.

Our contract is our monthly phone bill. If you want, we would be glad to
photocopy them for our fees.

As for prisoner request they fill out commissary requests, mail requests,
and doctor's request with pen and paper .

There are thousands of those over the years that are in individual inmate
files. We will be glad to get those however there will be considerable
research and photocopying costs.

We do not have them electronically, everything we have is hard copy to the
best of my knowledge

if there's something more specific you are looking for please let me know,
I would be glad to help you wherever I can. However, I'm not sure I have
the type of things you're generally looking for in your request.

Feel free to give me a call.

Ken Blackburn
Sheriff- Bighorn county WY

Please feel free to give me more detailed requests of what you're looking
for if there's a specific inmate or group that I can help you with I would
be glad to provide it as the law allows.

From: Beryl Lipton

02/14/2019

Subject: RE: Wyoming Public Records Act Request: Communication Services Contract - Wyoming - 2018 (Big Horn County Sheriff's Office)

Hello Sheriff Blackburn,

Thank you so much for your help with this request. I'm hoping you could clarify a few things from your previous message. Do inmates primarily use the pay phone, then, to conduct phone calls with family members? And do other calls, with lawyers and the like, get conducted on an office phone for which the Sheriff's Department pays itself? I would be interested in a few months invoices, but we can figure that out once I better understand the charge structure.

Thanks so much for your help.

Best wishes,
Beryl

From: Big Horn County Sheriff's Office

02/14/2019

Subject: Re: Wyoming Public Records Act Request: Communication Services Contract - Wyoming - 2018 (Big Horn County Sheriff's Office)

Hello,

So inmates can have folks put money on their accounts and they can purchase
phone cards to use at their convenience there are phones in every housing
area. Keep in mind we only hold about 60 to 80 inmates.

The phones are also available in the housing areas to receive calls from
family members, that works like any phone in a common area.

When inmates are grieving or have family emergencies we take them to our
booking area and allow them to use our sheriffs phones at the sheriff's
department's expense.

My personal feeling is no matter who they are, when someone is suffering
they need to be able to express their emotions somewhat privately if that
is their desire, and they need to be able to have free unrestrained
conversation with their family.

That is a non recorded line that we use as is situationally appropriate.

The same phone line in Booking is used for legal calls or medical calls,
again the sheriff's department pays for those calls and they are not
recorded for attorney-client confidentiality and patient confidentiality
reasons.

The medical calls are quite rare as most medical issues are dealt with
through our nurse and doctor visits which are also confidential as is
appropriate.

Attorneys of record can and do visit face to face in a confidential area
with their clients

Family members only visit through the glass in the visitation area for
obvious security reasons.

We have recently begun developing a video visitation area to improve
contact for inmates and families however, we do not have the money or
personnel to have one in every housing area, for that reason we will have
one in a confidential area that the inmates or families can request for
birthdays events etc .

At this time it will not be confidential and is subject to be monitored on
a case-by-case basis.

Families for inmates will need to pay for this service as you can imagine
it it is cost prohibitive for the county to fund it.

A record is kept in individual inmate files that they were escorted to
booking for a private call either family related attorney related etc. It
is nothing more than a notation in their record and that's the only record
kept of those other than our phone bills which I probably couldn't tell you
who made what call from the bill as it is the same non recorded line our
officers use regularly.

There will be deputies in the area visually monitoring the inmate when
they're on those calls , and we dial the number to ensure that the
appropriate party is connected. We do not listen to the calls.

We do have the ability to monitor calls in common areas, but do not have
the staff to routinely monitor everyone. The phones have signs stating
that the calls may be monitored in the common areas and there is a voice
message that states the calls may be monitored in the common areas to make
to make sure the inmate is aware or family members are where the call may
be monitored.

I don't remember what all else you asked, I hope this helps a little more.
we do have documentation available as stated in my earlier email on July
6th of 2018, however it will require a tremendous amount of hand searching
labor and related expense.

I'm glad to help with anything else you need within reason. if you can let
me know specifically what and purpose you're looking for this info, I might
be able to figure out an easier way to get it for you.
Sincerely,
Ken Blackburn

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