Inmate Video Visitation in Louisiana

If someone you love is locked up in Louisiana, video can save you a long drive to a remote facility. But Louisiana is different from most states in a way that matters before you do anything else: roughly half of the people serving state-level felony sentences here are not in state prisons at all. They're housed in local parish jails under contract with the state. So the first thing to nail down is not just whether your person is "state" or "local," but which physical building they're actually sitting in, because that determines the vendor, the cost, and the rules.

Louisiana splits custody three ways, and each handles video differently. The state prison system (DPS&C) runs eight state-operated facilities. Parish jails and city jails, run by sheriffs, handle people awaiting trial, serving short sentences, and a large share of state-sentenced inmates. And federal and immigration custody play by their own rules, with Louisiana holding several federal prisons and being one of the largest ICE detention states in the country. Figure out which building your person is in first, because everything else flows from that.

Do Louisiana state prisons offer video visitation?

Yes. The Department of Public Safety and Corrections (DPS&C) offers both in-person and video at its eight state-operated facilities. Telephone and video services run through Securus (Securus Video Connect), and electronic messaging runs through JPay. To use video, the person you're visiting must have you on their approved visiting list first, then you register with the vendor, verify your ID, and fund an account.

In-person visiting is also offered, typically on weekends, and rules vary by facility and housing unit. At Louisiana State Penitentiary (Angola), for example, an incarcerated person may have up to ten approved visitors plus a religious adviser, and individual visitors may visit up to twice per month. DPS&C has publicly warned that breaking visitation rules can carry serious legal consequences, so read the rules for the specific facility before you go.

To get on the approved visitor list, you go through the facility's visitor application and approval process. The phone and master contact list is generally updated on a quarterly basis, so don't expect instant changes.

Why your person may be in a parish jail, not a prison

This is the Louisiana wrinkle that trips up families. Because the state houses a large share of its sentenced felony population in local parish jails, your person can be serving a state sentence while physically sitting in a parish facility run by a sheriff, sometimes far from where they were convicted. When that's the case, the parish jail's vendor and rules apply, not the state prison's. The state's own guidance is blunt about it: people serving state felony time who are housed in local facilities have to use whatever phone and visitation systems those local facilities have set up. So always confirm the actual building, then look up that facility's specific vendor.

Parish and city jails

This is where most day-to-day video visiting happens in Louisiana, and the vendor varies because each sheriff picks their own.

East Baton Rouge Parish Prison, for example, uses ICSolutions (branded "The Visitor") and offers both onsite and remote video. Across the state you'll also see Securus, GTL/ViaPath, HomeWAV, and Smart Communications. The big parish systems, East Baton Rouge, Orleans (Orleans Justice Center), and Caddo (Caddo Correctional Center), each publish their own rosters and run their own visitation setups.

The vendor is facility-specific, so the company that works for one parish won't necessarily be the one next door. One warning that saves people money and grief: accounts do not transfer between vendors. If your person moves from an ICSolutions jail to a Securus jail, your funds and account don't follow. You set up fresh with the new vendor.

How parish jail video visitation usually works

There are two flavors, and the difference is the whole ballgame for your wallet.

Onsite (or "onsite video") means you drive to the jail and sit at a video terminal in the lobby to talk to the person, who's on a screen inside. Many parish jails have replaced in-person visits with video kiosks, where the inmate never leaves the housing unit. Onsite video is frequently free, at least up to a weekly limit.

Remote video means you connect from your own phone, tablet, or computer at home. That convenience is what you pay for. Remote sessions are charged per session or per minute, you typically prepay into a vendor account, and you usually reserve a slot in advance.

Louisiana jail video rates shift around, partly because the FCC has been capping these rates through 2024 to 2026 and partly because every facility prices differently. I'm not going to print a per-minute number here, because by the time you read it, it'll be wrong. Look up the rate on your specific jail's vendor page before you pay. What's stable is the structure: onsite is often free up to a weekly limit, remote tends to cost, and there are usually advance-registration rules.

Setting up a video visit

The steps are roughly the same whichever vendor you're dealing with:

1. Find the exact building first, then its vendor. Confirm whether your person is in a state prison or a parish jail (state-sentenced doesn't always mean a state prison). For DPS&C it's Securus. For a parish jail, check the sheriff's website, since it could be ICSolutions, Securus, GTL/ViaPath, or something else. Don't guess.

2. Get on the approved list, then create your account. The person must add you and you must be approved before you can schedule.

3. Add your inmate using the correct name and DPS&C or booking number. Make sure your registration details match the facility's records, or the vendor may not let you schedule.

4. Schedule your visit, choosing onsite or remote, and pay if it's a paid remote session. Many facilities require booking in advance.

5. Test your device and log in early. Get on about 15 minutes ahead. Check your camera, microphone, speakers, and internet. A failed connection on your end usually still burns the visit slot.

Federal and immigration custody

If your person is in federal Bureau of Prisons custody, Louisiana has several BOP facilities, mostly in the central part of the state. These include the Pollock complex (FCI Pollock medium-security and USP Pollock high-security, near Alexandria) and the Oakdale complex (FCI Oakdale and FDC Oakdale, in Allen Parish), most with adjacent camps. The BOP runs primarily in-person visiting with only limited video, so use the BOP inmate locator to find the institution and check its specific visiting rules. If someone was recently arrested on a federal charge and isn't in the BOP locator yet, they're likely still in U.S. Marshals custody during the designation period.

Immigration custody is enormous in Louisiana. The state is one of the largest ICE detention hubs in the country, with a cluster of dedicated facilities concentrated in rural central and northern Louisiana, many run by private operators (GEO Group and LaSalle Corrections). These include the Central Louisiana ICE Processing Center (Jena), the Pine Prairie ICE Processing Center, the South Louisiana ICE Processing Center (Basile), Winn Correctional Center (Winnfield), Richwood Correctional Center (Monroe), Jackson Parish Correctional Center (Jonesboro), River Correctional Center (Ferriday), and others. People are routinely transferred among these facilities and into Louisiana from other states, so don't assume someone stays put. To locate someone in ICE custody, use the ICE Online Detainee Locator, which needs the person's A-Number (the nine-digit alien registration number) or their name plus country of birth. Each ICE facility sets its own visiting and video rules, so confirm directly with the facility, and note that immigration bonds can only be posted at specific ICE-ERO offices, not at the detention facility itself.

A note on staying connected

Video is good for one thing money can't really replace: seeing a face, watching a kid wave, reading an expression. When your person is in a remote parish facility, a federal prison, or an ICE detention center hours from anywhere, that matters.

But be honest with yourself about what carries the weight day to day. Mail is the steadiest line there is. It doesn't drop the call, doesn't need a scheduled slot, and the person can hold it and read it again at 2 a.m. when the walls close in. Phone calls are the backbone of staying in touch, the thing you'll actually do most weeks. Video is the bonus on top, the face-to-face when you can get it. Build your routine around mail and calls, and treat video as the thing that makes the distance feel a little smaller.

Related pages:

/prisons/louisiana

FCC 2026 call and video rate caps guide

Arrest Record Search (affiliate)