When his father died last year of an overdose.Rodney Watson thought he would miss the funeral and his last chance to say goodbye—not because of the pandemic, but because he was in jail. Watson, 36, was awaiting trial in Houston after shooting and wounding his brother during a fight, an act he swears was unintentional.

In the past, Watson’s incarceration could have forced him to miss the elegant church funeral with the white roses and the military burial where they played Smokey Robinson. He wouldn’t have heard his family tell him they loved him and it would be all right.

But under a new practice adopted by the Harris County Sheriff’s Office, he was able to watch it all in November on a Zoom video call from inside the jail.

“It was beautiful,” he said. “And in a way I got a chance to see it.”

In Houston and a handful of other cities and states, the pandemic has pushed the criminal legal system to reimagine itself a bit, delivering services in ways that might have seemed unthinkable a year ago, from outdoor vocational programs to art classes via Google Hangouts. These are cutting-edge changes that have been a lifeline for incarcerated people craving contact with their families and opportunities to better themselves. But they come with risk: Families of prisoners fear corrections officials will use the technology to replace in-person interactions even after the pandemic ends.

Read the full article about technology adoption in jails and prisons by Keri Blakinger at The Marshall Project.