S.L. v. Swanson
In Flint, children write messages on the sidewalk outside the jail for their parents who are locked up there to see. In an act of cruelty, the Sheriff washes them away.
Flint, Genesee County, MI: Right 2 Hug
Across the United States, hundreds of jails have eliminated in-person family visits over the last decade. The policy change has devastating consequences for the people who are incarcerated, for their children and loved ones, and for public safety generally. Why has this happened? The answer highlights a profound flaw in how decisions too often get made in our legal system: for-profit jail telecom companies realized that they could earn more profit from phone and video calls if jails eliminated free in-person visits for families. So the companies offered sheriffs and county jails across the country a deal: if you eliminate family visits, we’ll give you a cut of the increased profits from the larger number of calls. This led to a wave across the country, as local jails sought to supplement their budgets with hundreds of millions of dollars in cash from some of the poorest families in our society.
Our lawsuit was filed on behalf of a group of children and parents in Flint, Michigan who were harmed by the defendants’ Family Visitation Ban. The lawsuit is brought in state court in Michigan against Sheriff Chris Swanson, the County, the multi-billion dollar for-profit telecom company Global Tel*Link, or GTL, and the company’s CEO Deb Anderson. The lawsuit alleges a conspiracy to violate the plaintiffs’ fundamental constitutional rights. The landmark case raises novel and vital constitutional questions, including—can the government ban children and parents from visiting each other if one of them is jailed even though the policy doesn’t serve any important purpose?
This case was filed with M.M. v. King.
