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This story was supported by a statehouse coverage grant from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

George Brinkley, who was recently released from the Delaware Department of Correction, said tablets provided by the state have helped him gain job skills and stay connected with his family. He was detained at the Community Corrections Treatment Center in Smyrna.

“It helps me communicate with my family because my family lives in Sussex County,” he said. “There’s a phone app that I can make a phone call anytime I need it.”

DOC partnered with ViaPath Technologies earlier this year to provide all incarcerated individuals with tablets, more than 4,000 people. It’s an expansion of a pilot program that started in 2019 with a ratio of about one tablet per six people being held in prison.

Brinkley earned money inside the prison by working in the kitchen, and cleaning the administration offices and his living area, making $13.25 an hour. But those earnings go to fines, restitution and court fees, not him. So it fell on his family to give him money to access the paid features of the tablet. He said his girlfriend would send him money for the device.

“I just tell her to send me a few dollars,” he said. “Just to be able to send her a text message.”

Community Corrections Treatment Center offers substance abuse treatment. The people incarcerated there don’t keep the wages they earn. But in Delaware’s other prisons, inmates earn just cents on the dollar for every hour they work, which means using the tablets can be expensive for them and their families.

ViaPath is owned by private equity firm American Securities. It’s one of the nation’s largest prison telecom corporations. The company provided free tablets to people being held in confinement and provided the infrastructure. It makes money through charging for personal communication with loved ones, and access to sports, podcasts, news, games, movies and music.  The costs range from three cents to five cents a minute. The tablets are not connected to the internet.

Delaware has agreed to corrective actions aligning with federal disability rights laws after a recent complaint claimed the state failed to provide medical equipment and support services to a person with disabilities so they could live at home.
File Photo by zeevveez/Flickr

“Nursing home placement should never be the automatic option after a person with disabilities is discharged from a hospital. Alternatives, including returning the individual to their home, must first be considered,” said OCR Director Melanie Fontes Rainier.

“States must ensure they support community-based placement and independent living to the fullest extent of the law, so people with disabilities are not denied the right to live in their homes and communities,” Rainier added.

In the agreement, Delaware’s Department of Health and Social Services vowed to complete assessments to identify the individual’s needs while providing specialty equipment, home modifications and personal support.

The state also agreed to facilitate the patient’s discharge from the nursing home to their modified family home, which was completed in October.

Going forward, Delaware will have to report monthly to OCR over the next nine months about how it is monitoring the patient’s home care and any potential issues that arise.

“Twenty-five years after the Supreme Court made these legal protections clear in Olmstead,” Rainier added, “OCR’s unwavering commitment to enforce these legal protections for individuals with disabilities is equally clear.”

The Supreme Court’s 1999 decision found any unjustified segregation of people with disabilities is considered discrimination under the ADA.

This is OCR’s second Olmstead agreement this year to resolve a complaint about unnecessary institutional confinement.

This holiday season, the very last of one local family’s Christmas trees are being shaken, bundled and getting their fresh cuts.

After this Christmas Eve, the Poynter’s Tree Farm and ornament shop is closing for good.

The family behind the beloved holiday tradition says that they’ll miss their customers, but they say this is just the right time to say goodbye.

Jeannie Wood and her father made their very first sale back in 1970 when Bob and Bonnie Poynter started the farm in Felton, Delaware, to help pay for their three daughters’ college dreams.

The farm became a tradition for many in Kent County and a way for the family to come back together every holiday season.

We’ve all been doing it for a long time so I think we are all ready to retire,” Wood told NBC10. My dad and I planted the first trees in 1967.”

When Bob Poynter died a few years ago followed by his wife Bonnie last summer, the family agreed that this year would be the last for the tree farm.

“It’s going to be different but I don’t know what it’s gonna be like because we’ve never experienced it. We’ve always been doing this,” Wood said.

From the Christmas shop to the wreath workshop, it’s a bittersweet moment for the family and for their loyal customers.

Many of the customers come from a couple of hours away just to buy their tree at Poynter’s every year.

All of the trees that are ready for sale have been sold already. Before the family sells the land, they will have to decide what to do with all of the little trees that are still too small to be sold this year.

If you want to check out Poynter’s before they close, you have until Christmas Eve to shop for ornaments and nutcrackers.