Visitation for inmates at the Westmoreland County Prison will be restricted to video only through September under a agreement approved Thursday by county commissioners.

Commissioners approved an amendment to its agreement with Global Tel-Link Corp., the private company that operates the telephone system at the jail in Hempfield.

Warden John Walton said the firm began offering its covid-19 free video visitation program at the jail May 18, offering inmates one free video visit per week for up to 10 minutes. For additional video visits, inmates are charged 60 cents per minute.

Walton said the county took advantage of the program this spring after it banned all in-person visits with inmates in March.

The move aimed to prevent the spread of coronavirus among the inmate population and employees.

However, Global Tel-Link decided it could no longer foot the bill for the one free weekly visit, and the county agreed to pay the tab at the rate of 60 cents a minute, according to Walton.

“It’s a maximum $6 a call and I believe the total bill was $4,200 last month,” Walton said.

“I think it’s worked great. I believe we’ve had no issues,” Walton said.

“And we’ve only had two reported covid-19 cases here since the pandemic started, and they were both new inmates being brought here from the outside,” Walton said.

The last inmate who tested positive for coronavirus occurred July 17 and that was discovered by routine testing of newly booked, quarantined inmates at the prison. The first positive test occurred July 11 and was discovered following a test administered at a local hospital before the inmate was taken to the jail.

In both cases, the individuals remained in quarantine and had had no contact with other inmates, Walton said.

All new inmates are held in quarantine in single cells. The jail has 48 cells available for quarantine and, in July, reduced the time new inmates are held in isolation from 14 to seven days. Covid-19 tests are administered to inmates in quarantine following seven days in isolation.

The agreement expires Sept. 30.

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