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Two Michigan lawsuits filed on March 15, 2024, alleged that county jails eliminated or restricted in-person family visits while financially benefiting from paid phone and video services supplied by correctional-telecommunications companies. The complaints described the arrangements as a “quid pro quo” or kickback scheme. Those are allegations—not findings that the counties or companies committed illegal conduct.
The cases involved St. Clair County Jail and Genesee County Jail, along with Securus Technologies and ViaPath Technologies, formerly known as Global Tel*Link or GTL. The litigation later produced different outcomes: Genesee reportedly changed its visitation and communication policies, while the St. Clair case was dismissed at trial and remained on appeal according to the latest accessible case-status information dated August 18, 2026.
The short version
- St. Clair County: The lawsuit alleged that in-person visits ended in September 2017 and that Securus’s contract paid the county commissions and guaranteed annual revenue.
- Genesee County: The lawsuit alleged that contact visits ended in 2014 and that a later GTL/ViaPath contract offered guaranteed payments, a technology grant and a share of video-call revenue.
- Family cost: Relatives were allegedly pushed toward per-minute phone charges and paid video sessions instead of free or lower-cost in-person contact.
- Company responses: Securus called the St. Clair case misguided and meritless. ViaPath/GTL denied the allegations in comments reported by Ars Technica.
- What the courts established: Neither lawsuit established a nationwide conspiracy or automatically proved that a commission arrangement was an illegal kickback.
The original allegations and contract figures come primarily from the two filed complaints: the St. Clair County complaint and the Genesee County complaint.
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How the alleged revenue model worked
The plaintiffs’ theory was straightforward:
- A jail eliminated free or relatively accessible in-person family visits.
- Families lost a meaningful way to communicate with an incarcerated relative without traveling to the facility.
- Paid phone calls and video visits became the practical alternative.
- The vendor collected usage revenue.
- The county received commissions, grants, guaranteed payments or other financial benefits under its contract.
A commission is not automatically illegal. Counties may contract with private vendors and may receive payments connected to jail services. The legal and policy concern raised by the lawsuits was whether officials restricted family contact because the resulting paid-call revenue benefited the county and vendor.
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The complaints did not allege that the contracts necessarily contained a clause expressly saying “ban in-person visits.” Instead, plaintiffs sought to infer an improper exchange from the visitation policies, contract economics and alleged statements surrounding the vendor arrangements.
What the St. Clair County lawsuit alleged
M.M. v. King was filed in Michigan state court against St. Clair County, Sheriff Mat King, Securus Technologies, Platinum Equity—Securus’s owner—and additional corporate executives.
The complaint alleged that St. Clair County ended in-person family visitation in September 2017. According to the complaint and contemporaneous reporting, a 20-minute video call cost $12.99, while phone calls cost $0.21 per minute.
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- A 50% county share of each video-call charge.
- A 78% county share of phone-call revenue.
- A guaranteed payment of at least $190,000 per year.
- Financial consequences or reduced payments if minimum monthly video-call volumes were not met.
- Contract provisions that could allow renegotiation or termination after a material reduction in jail population or capacity.
These terms are allegations drawn from the complaint and its exhibits, not a judicial finding that the agreement was unlawful.
The plaintiffs sought class-action treatment, declaratory and injunctive relief, damages, disgorgement of profits, exemplary damages, attorney fees and litigation costs. Securus told Ars Technica that the case was “misguided and without merit” and said it intended to defend itself.
St. Clair’s later procedural history
The trial court dismissed the case in August 2024 and denied class-action treatment. The plaintiffs appealed. According to the latest accessible case-status pages from Right to Hug and the Civil Rights Litigation Clearinghouse, the appeal remained pending as of August 18, 2026.
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“Dismissed” should not be translated into “the court found the allegations were fabricated.” A dismissal may resolve claims because of legal defects, the parties named, the type of relief requested or other procedural and substantive grounds. The available case summaries establish the dismissal and appeal status, but do not by themselves justify treating every factual allegation as adjudicated false.
What the Genesee County lawsuit alleged
S.L. v. Swanson was filed against Genesee County, Sheriff Christopher Swanson, Global Tel*Link Corporation doing business as ViaPath Technologies, and ViaPath CEO Deb Alderson.
The complaint alleged that Genesee County ended contact visits in 2014. It further alleged that the jail first worked with Securus and later moved to GTL/ViaPath because the replacement arrangement offered greater guaranteed revenue.
The alleged GTL/ViaPath terms included:
- $180,000 per year from phone-call revenue.
- An annual $60,000 “technology grant.”
- 20% of video-call revenue.
- Video calls priced at $10 for 25 minutes.
- A later guaranteed annual payment of approximately $240,000.
- The ability to terminate or withdraw video services if call revenue was insufficient.
The complaint also attributed to a jail captain an explanation that the vendor switch was financially advantageous because GTL’s guaranteed commission exceeded the average monthly commission from Securus. That account remains an allegation reported through the lawsuit, not an independently established admission.
Plaintiffs argued that parents and children could no longer sit with, touch or hug one another and that families were left with costly phone and video services as their regular communication options. The complaint also alleged that many people held in the county jail were awaiting trial or presumed innocent. Those assertions should be understood as allegations in the pleading.
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The Civil Rights Litigation Clearinghouse reported that Genesee County Jail changed its policy in June 2024 to allow in-person visits and less expensive phone and video options. The available reporting does not establish that every detail of the later policy—including whether visits were contact or noncontact, the precise fees, eligibility rules or any continuing county commission—was permanently unchanged through 2026.
On December 30, 2024, a Michigan trial-court opinion granted summary disposition to the defendants. The order is available from Public Justice. Summary disposition resolved the Genesee litigation in the defendants’ favor at that stage; it should not be described broadly as a judicial finding that all of the complaint’s factual allegations were false or that revenue-sharing visitation policies are lawful everywhere.
Why the policy matters to families’ budgets
Paid correctional communications can turn ordinary family contact into a recurring household expense. A family may pay per minute for phone calls, per session for video visits, fees to create or fund an account, and transportation costs when an in-person visit is available only at a distant facility.
The financial burden can be especially severe for families without reliable internet access, a credit card, flexible work schedules or transportation. A parent may also have to choose between multiple short paid calls and other basic household expenses. For children, a video screen is not necessarily an equivalent substitute for sitting beside or touching an incarcerated parent.
The issue can also affect people held before trial. County jails do not house only sentenced prisoners; many detainees are awaiting court proceedings. The practical consequences therefore extend to families supporting someone who has not been convicted.
Separate rules may apply to family visits, attorney-client visits, clergy visits and other legal or professional contact. A restriction on family visitation does not automatically mean that confidential legal visits were unavailable.
Why jails use video visitation
There are legitimate operational arguments for remote visitation. Jail officials may say that video systems:
- Reduce the number of visitors entering secure areas.
- Lower staffing, search and scheduling demands.
- Reduce transportation and security complications.
- Help relatives who live far from the jail.
- Allow visitation during a lockdown, health emergency or other temporary restriction.
The plaintiffs’ response was that those benefits do not justify replacing meaningful family contact with paid services where the jail and vendor profit from increased usage. A less financially troubling model could offer remote video visits alongside supervised in-person visits, rather than making paid video the only regular option.
The key distinction is between a temporary or individualized restriction—for example, a lockdown, documented security threat, construction emergency or visitor-specific safety concern—and a long-term facility-wide policy that removes in-person visits for everyone.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.What “quid pro quo” means here
“Quid pro quo” means an exchange: one party provides a benefit in return for another party’s action. In these cases, plaintiffs alleged that the county restricted free in-person visitation in exchange for financial benefits tied to paid communications.
That phrase describes the plaintiffs’ legal theory. It does not, by itself, prove bribery, a criminal offense or an illegal kickback. It is also inaccurate to say that all video visitation is illegal or that every jail receiving a vendor commission acted unlawfully.
To evaluate such an allegation, investigators would need to examine the full contracts, procurement records, county meeting minutes, budgets, emails, policy memos, call-volume data and testimony. Useful warning signs could include a blanket ban, commissions tied to usage, minimum-revenue guarantees, termination rights when usage falls, or internal communications explicitly linking fewer in-person visits to increased revenue. None of those indicators alone proves unlawful conduct.
What remains unresolved
The lawsuits raised difficult questions about family association, state law, jail administration and private-company participation in government services:
- Whether a county jail has a constitutional obligation to provide in-person family visitation under the particular circumstances alleged.
- Whether officials may restrict family contact primarily to increase revenue.
- Whether a private communications company can be liable for participating in an agreement with government officials.
- Whether state-law or Michigan constitutional claims should be treated differently from federal claims.
- Whether a policy change makes requests for an injunction moot while leaving damages or other claims alive.
The outcomes in these two cases do not answer those questions for every jail. Nor do they establish that all facilities using commissions, grants or guaranteed payments have the same arrangement or motivation.
How widespread is the practice?
Civil Rights Corps said that hundreds of jails had eliminated in-person family visits over the previous decade. That is an advocacy-group estimate, not a verified national census of visitation bans or allegedly improper revenue-sharing contracts.
The Genesee complaint also alleged that GTL contracts covered approximately 2,300 correctional facilities, including more than 650 counties, based on company-related information. That figure does not mean all those facilities banned visits, charged the same rates or shared revenue improperly.
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National conclusions require facility-by-facility records. Jail policies vary by state, county, population, security level, staffing and contract terms.
What families can do
- Get the written visitation policy. Ask the jail for current rules, eligibility requirements, visit types, fees and cancellation terms.
- Separate visit categories. Confirm whether family, attorney, clergy and other visits are governed by different rules.
- Request the contract and fee schedule. Public-records procedures may reveal commissions, grants, minimum guarantees, renewal terms and usage thresholds.
- Keep records. Save receipts, account statements, screenshots, call logs, rejected-visit notices and records of failed or unusable video calls.
- Ask about refunds. Request the vendor’s written policy for dropped calls, poor-quality sessions or visits canceled by the facility.
- Seek local help. Civil-rights organizations, legal-aid groups and local reporters may help explain public-records options or identify applicable rules.
These steps are information-gathering measures, not a guarantee that a complaint or lawsuit will succeed.
Bottom line
The Michigan lawsuits alleged a troubling financial structure: remove in-person family visits, channel families into paid calls and video chats, and share the resulting revenue with the county. The alleged prices, commissions and guarantees came from the complaints, and the companies denied wrongdoing. Genesee later reportedly restored in-person visits and lower-cost communication options; St. Clair’s lawsuit was dismissed and appealed. The cases therefore spotlight the accountability problem without proving a nationwide illegal scheme.
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