You can see and talk to someone at Cook County Jail without leaving home. The jail offers video visits on your phone, tablet or computer through the GettingOut app. You can also go to the jail for an in-person visit. Pick a topic below.
A video visit is a live video call between you and your loved one. You use your phone, tablet or computer at home. They use a tablet inside the jail. Cook County Jail runs these visits through a company called GettingOut (owned by ViaPath), the same company that handles the jail's tablets and text messages.
Video visits are paid through your GettingOut account. The app shows the price, how long the visit lasts, and the open times before you pay, so you always know first. How often you can visit depends on your loved one's housing unit and tablet access.
Tip: Your loved one can also use their tablet to send you messages and let you know when they are free.
Jail staff may watch and record video visits. The same rules apply as in the visiting room.
Break these rules and the call can be cut off, and you can lose video visits.
Every adult visitor has to pass a background check first. Here is who gets in, and who may not.
Anyone 18 or older who has been approved for that specific person. You must bring one valid photo ID, and it has to be the same ID you used on your application. The jail accepts:
If you live more than 150 miles from the jail, you count as an out-of-town visitor. Your state ID is the proof of where you live.
Supervisors can also refuse a visitor for safety reasons. Some people who are refused can try again later.
Allow about one week for approval.
No internet? Paper applications are handed out in the lobby of your loved one's division and at the entrance of every Cook County courthouse.
Do I have to apply again? Not if your loved one is moved to another building. Yes if they are released and then jailed again.
Limit: one in-person visit a week, with up to two adults, during the hours set for your loved one's unit.
Booking won't go through? You are probably not approved yet. Call (773) 674-8225 or email DOC.visitation@ccsheriff.org.
Give yourself a half hour or more before your booked time. Security screening takes a while, and weekends are the busiest. Arriving late can cost you the visit.
Phones and all electronics, cameras, food, drinks, tobacco, vapes, lighters, matches, alcohol, drugs, weapons of any kind, pocket knives, tools, nail clippers, needles, and anything made of paper, including books and magazines. Sneaking banned items into a jail is a felony in Illinois, and the jail warns that it can mean up to 12 years in state prison.
A good choice is a shirt with sleeves and pants that stay up at the waist. You can be sent away for wearing:
Keep your voice down and skip the cursing. Speak only with your loved one. Stay put unless an officer lets you step out. Staff may monitor or record what is said.
The jail covers several city blocks near 26th Street and California Avenue on the Southwest Side of Chicago. Use the entrance (called a "post") for your loved one's building:
All are in Chicago, IL 60608. For a division not shown here, call (773) 674-8225 and ask which post to use.
Every tier has its own assigned days within those hours. Check your loved one's unit on the division schedules page.
Getting there: CTA buses and trains stop in the area, and there is paid parking nearby.
Visiting rules at the jail change from time to time. A quick call to (773) 674-8225 before your visit can save you a wasted trip.
Address:
2700 South California
Chicago, IL 60608
Phone:
773-869-7100
Video Visitation is done using Microsoft Teams Group Chat Software.
What is a video visit, and how do they work?
Who are the companies that facilitate video visits?
Video visitation, also known as remote visitation, is quickly becoming the preferred method for visiting an inmate in jail or prison for the following reasons:
• It requires little to no staff, versus the staff required to move inmates to and from the visit and watch over the visit. It saves the Cook County Jail Division 3 Annex (Women's Division) money.
• It removes any opportunity for contraband (drugs) to enter the facility.
• It can become a profit center for the facility, given that the revenue generated by visits is shared with the jail.
• While inmates prefer to see family and friends in person, video visitation allows them to visit with them more often, and on a whim.
• Video visitation gives the inmates and their visitors the feeling of more privacy.
Video visitation from the perspective of the visitor allows them to visit from their home, their car, at work, and even allows them to take their device to a family or religious gathering. It allows them to give their inmate the feeling of belonging and not being forgotten.
Video visitation can take place on a computer, a tablet or a phone.
Video visitation saves time. Instead of spending hours driving to the jail, checking in, filling out paperwork, potentially being searched, waiting, and then having a 15–30-minute visit, if it isn’t cancelled at the last minute, the visit can be done from anywhere during a short break in the visitor’s day.
If the visitor does not have access to a phone or computer, they can make an appointment ahead of time and use terminals in the lobby of the jail.
You must also be on the inmate's approved list, even for a video visit.
There are several different companies that contract with all the jails and prisons that allow video visitation:
These are the companies in alphabetical order:
CIDNET
City Tele Coin
Correct Solutions Group
Correct Pay
Ctel
Gettingout
GTL
Homewav
IC Solutions
Inmate Canteen
Inmate Sales
iwebvisits
JailATM
Jpay
NCIC
Prodigy Sales
Reliance
Securus
Smart Communications
Tiger Services
Visitel
In addition, some jails use Microsoft Meeting and Zoom.