Three county jails in Colorado and Utah have installed or are scheduled to install payment kiosks, eliminating the need for jail employees to handle inmates’ cash, according to agreements the jails signed with Continental Prison Systems Inc.
Continental Prison Systems, a Fresno, Calif.-based company that does business as EZ Card & Kiosk LLC, installed kiosks in Clear Creek Jail, a 120-bed facility in Georgetown, Colo., and Montrose County Jail, a 220-bed jail in Montrose, Colo. Continental plans to install kiosks in Davis County Jail, a 600-bed facility in Farmington, Utah, by the middle of February.
Inmates deposit funds into the kiosks, which are manufactured by Kiosk Information Systems of Louisville, Colo., and another, unnamed company. The kiosks issue two receipts–one to the inmate and another to the jail. When the inmate is released, the kiosk loads the inmate’s funds into a debit card account offered by U.S. PayCard, a Las Vegas-based company that is an investor in Continental Prison Systems.
Peoples Bank of Paris, Texas, issues the card, and is Continental Prison Systems’ merchant acquirer. Released prisoners can withdraw funds from any Star network ATM or point-of-sale location.
Installation of kiosks save jails $150,000 to $200,000 annually in overhead expense because the institutions do have to assign employees to handle inmate cash, says Frank Hofmeister, a Continental Prisons Systems spokesperson.
Davis County Jail will deploy four kiosks. Employees will use one of the kiosks to book arrested individuals, and inmates can use a second kiosk to post bail either with a debit card, credit card or cash. A third kiosk, located in the jail’s lobby, enables inmates’ friends or relatives to deposit funds with cash or a credit or debit card into prisoners’ jail accounts. It will use a fourth kiosk to pay inmates participating in the county’s work-release program. The county will load payments into the U.S. PayCard debit card account.
Clear Creek County Jail deployed two kiosks, one in the booking area another in the visitor lobby.
Montrose County Jail deployed three kiosks. One of the kiosks is for booking suspects. The second is used to pay inmates assigned to the county’s work-release program, and a third, located in the jail’s lobby, enables relatives or friends to deposit funds into inmates’ accounts.
