I have had loved ones in prison most years since 1981, about 2/3 of my life.
One of the things that prisons do is make it hard to stay in touch. Prisons are often hours away, with no public transportation, which makes visiting in person difficult to impossible. My brother committed his crime in the second largest city in the state. For most of his incarceration, he was in a small town an hour away. There is one bus between the two, on a weekday, one day a month. My parents lived three hours away, and absent a car would have had to take public transportation to the major city, stay overnight in a hotel to be there early enough to catch the bus to the prison. Other means of keeping in touch were letters and collect phone calls.
I am currently keeping in touch with a former student incarcerated about the same distance away from loved ones. These third party services make connection possible. They offer messaging services with relatively instant turn-around and video visits - so the distance becomes less of a barrier to staying connected.
(Between the two, I have another brother and a nephew (his son) who rotate in and out of prison)
In all of these situations, termination of connection is arbitrary, and for the "typical" family of inmates hard to understand and navigate. The indignities of loving someone incarcerated are different, but ever-present. My daughter has been strip-searched to make sure I didn't hide contraband in her diaper when I visited my brother. (And the price of that visit is worse for my brother - a cavity search at the end of each visit.) All remote conversations are monitored (read, recorded, preserved by either the prison of these third party providers)
Should it be in the hands of third parties, with no accountability - absolutely not. But having them involved has made staying connected easier and cheaper, and at least provides a means for visual contact without the body searches for both inmates and visitors.
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