SOLANO COUNTY, Calif. — Children and parents of people incarcerated in Solano County are challenging the county’s prohibition on contact visits, arguing in a newly filed lawsuit that families have a constitutional right to maintain physical connections with their loved ones and that the jail system has instead created a financial incentive to keep them apart.
The lawsuit, filed July 22, names Solano County, the Solano County Sheriff’s Office, Sheriff Brad DeWall and jail telecommunications company iWebVisit as defendants. Plaintiffs allege the county and company have profited from eliminating in-person contact visits by requiring families to rely on paid video calls.
The case is part of the Right 2 Hug Project, a broader effort challenging jail policies that replace physical visitation with telephone and video communication. According to the organizations bringing the litigation, the Solano County case is the project’s fourth lawsuit, following two cases in Michigan and another in Colorado.
Matt Garcia, an attorney with Civil Rights Corps, told the Vanguard that the case rests on the argument that California’s constitutional protections for family relationships do not disappear simply because a family member is incarcerated.
“The Solano County jails have banned visits between parents and children,” Garcia said. “We are alleging that there is a state constitutional right to family association, that parents and children have a right to look each other in the eyes, to hug each other, and that this ban on in-person visits violates that constitutional right.”
Garcia said the plaintiffs include minor children as well as parents of people incarcerated in Solano County jails.
“We’re representing a group of plaintiffs, minor children, and parents of folks who are incarcerated in the jails to try and put a stop to that policy,” Garcia said. “We’ve got a number of different claims involved in the lawsuit.”
The litigation is still in its early stages, but Garcia said attorneys intend to seek immediate judicial intervention while the case proceeds.
“We’re at the very initial stages,” Garcia said. “We just filed the complaint a couple weeks ago, and we are going to be asking the court to grant immediate relief to stop the policy during the litigation.”
According to the plaintiffs, the consequences extend beyond inconvenience. They contend that eliminating physical visitation can damage family relationships, particularly between children and incarcerated parents.
“Ever since my dad went to jail, I haven’t been able to hug him, touch him, or be in the same room as him,” 15-year-old plaintiff BaKari Jacoby Etter said. “I feel our relationship changing. I notice myself feeling less connected to him. I can tell that I’m distancing myself from him even though I don’t want to [… ].”
“Some days are extra hard, like my birthday and Father’s Day,” Etter continued. “On those days, I feel especially sad that the jail won’t let me see him.”
Garcia told the Vanguard that Etter has been separated from his father for approximately two years and wants to participate in the litigation not only because of what the policy has done to his own relationship, but because he hopes to change the system for other families.
“He describes how that separation and the inability to see his dad in person has really affected their relationship for the worse,” Garcia said. “He has talked to us about how he really wants to be involved in this litigation so that he can try and create this change and make life better for his peers, for other people, other families who are impacted.”
The lawsuit also puts the financial structure surrounding jail communications at the center of the dispute.
According to the plaintiffs, Solano County entered into an exclusive video-call contract with iWebVisit in 2014 under which the Sheriff’s Office could receive up to 35% of money families paid for calls. Families have been charged between $5.70 and $9 for a 30-minute video call, and iWebVisit paid the county $147,000 in revenue sharing during fiscal year 2024-25 alone, according to the organizations representing the plaintiffs.
For some families, those charges can compete directly with basic living expenses.
“Every dollar I spend on iWebVisit is a dollar I am not spending on food, on hygiene supplies, or on doing my laundry,” said 70-year-old plaintiff Deborah Fernandez Crowder Music, whose son is detained in Solano County. “I regularly have to choose between calling my son and meeting my own basic needs.”
Garcia said financial hardship is a recurring theme among the plaintiffs.
“They have testified that the price of these calls places a huge financial strain on them and their families,” Garcia said. “Folks are having to forego basic necessities of daily life, groceries, medication, transportation expenses in order to try and pay for some of these phone calls just to maintain some kind of contact with their loved ones.”
The plaintiffs contend the revenue arrangement creates a financial incentive for jails to restrict alternative forms of communication.
“We allege that all of the stuff that the counties and the jails say about safety and security is really just pretext, and that these policies are about making money,” Garcia said. “They are about profit.”
Garcia explained that telecommunications companies provide and manage the technology used for jail video calls and then charge families for using those systems.
“Those telecom companies then charge family members for every phone call and then provide a kickback to the counties,” Garcia said. “The counties are directly profiting off of these video calls, taking money directly out of the pockets of some of the poorest members of our communities.”
“These contracts build in incentives to jail more people and to prevent any other form of contact so that the jails get more money as the number of calls per incarcerated individual goes up,” Garcia continued. “The more calls that are made, the more money in both in absolute terms and relatively the county is making.”
Garcia said Solano County and iWebVisit had not responded to the plaintiffs’ allegations at the time of his interview with the Vanguard. He said jail officials elsewhere have generally defended similar restrictions on security and staff-safety grounds.
Garcia argued research does not support those justifications.
“What the evidence shows, what scientific studies have shown is that these policies actually make jails less safe,” Garcia said. “They decrease the morale of folks who are incarcerated. They decrease the morale of jail staff.”
“Because of these bans, there’s increases of incidents of violence,” he continued. “They harm the family members who experience all sorts of negative health consequences, including depression, behavioral issues.”
“All of the things that we usually hear cited by county jails about jail safety and security, it’s just not borne out by the evidence,” Garcia said.
The legal theory advanced by the plaintiffs centers on family integrity and familial association, rights Garcia said courts have recognized for decades.
“Basically, we have a right to be with our loved ones,” Garcia said. “Courts have recognized that the family unit is foundational to our society and that that should be preserved and protected, and we have a right to maintain those relationships.”
Garcia said the plaintiffs are asserting the rights of family members outside the jail as well as challenging the restrictions imposed on incarcerated people.
“We are saying that those family members, the unincarcerated family members, the kids and the parents of loved ones who are incarcerated, the folks on the outside, they have a right to hug their family members, and that right is being violated by these policies,” Garcia said.
Joseph Duran, Jr., whose son is jailed in Solano County, said different forms of communication cannot replace being physically present with a family member.
“In my life, I have experienced almost every kind of communication a family can have with someone in custody — overnight visits, contact visits, through-glass, and video calls,” Duran said. “Relying on anything other than contact visits really takes something away from the relationship. Through-glass is heartbreaking. Video is even further removed.”
Plaintiff Kenetra Chappelle said restoring contact visits would allow her family to reconnect with her incarcerated daughter.
“If the Solano County jails allowed family contact visits, I would visit Kam every week,” Chappelle said. “I would bring her younger sister to see her, and I would help her grandmothers see her too.”
“It would mean the world to be able to hug my daughter again,” she added. “It would give me a chance to show her that her family is still here for her, especially now that she is grieving the loss of her father.”
Attorneys representing the families argue that those relationships are precisely what California constitutional protections are intended to preserve.
“Under the California Constitution, families of incarcerated people are still afforded a right to family integrity,” said Kory DeClark, a partner at BraunHagey & Borden LLP. “This includes the ability to hug and hold hands with their incarcerated loved one.”
“Families, and especially children, should not be denied their most basic human needs so that tech companies and jails can make money,” DeClark added. “We look forward to protecting Solano County families and advancing reform on this issue in California and nationwide.”
Alexandra Jordan, senior attorney at Public Justice, said, “We hope the county makes the right choice — the only lawful and moral choice — to stop profiting from family separation and allow children to hug their parents.”
Chesa Boudin, founding executive director of Berkeley Law’s Criminal Law & Justice Center, connected the litigation to his own experience visiting incarcerated parents.
“I grew up visiting my parents behind bars, so I know that being in the same room with the people you love is what holds families together through incarceration,” Boudin said. “The California Constitution protects that bond.”
“Yet Solano County profits by charging families for video calls while banning contact visits — monetizing the very bond the Constitution protects,” Boudin continued. “Our lawsuit is about restoring that right to hug.”
Garcia similarly framed the case as a challenge to what the plaintiffs contend is the commercialization of family separation.
“iWebVisit and Solano County have made hundreds of thousands of dollars by banning children from hugging their parents, leaving expensive calls as the only option for families to communicate,” Garcia said. “The ban on family visits is about profit, nothing else.”
“Profiteering has never been considered a compelling government interest,” Garcia added. “We hope that the court recognizes this and affirms California children’s right to hug their parents.”
The plaintiffs are represented by Berkeley Law’s Criminal Law & Justice Center, BraunHagey & Borden LLP, Civil Rights Corps and Public Justice.
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