The Problem With Screening the Mail in Prisons

Filed
12:00 p.m. EDT

08.02.2025

New York’s controversy over scanning mail in prisons displays a nationwide debate involving safety and privateness.

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Final week, we took a take a look at the lingering results of the New York correctional officers’ wildcat strike, which led to March. To deliver officers again to work, one of many calls for that the state met was to introduce scanners for authorized mail, meant to assist stop medication from coming into prisons. Hanging guards argued their security was in danger by each publicity to medication, and by prisoners appearing erratically after utilizing medication, in response to the Instances Union.

By late July, the scanners have been already in use at 36 of the state’s 42 prisons, and can quickly be in all amenities, in response to a Division of Corrections and Neighborhood Supervision spokesperson. The division has thus far been in a position to bypass the formal rulemaking course of as a result of emergency situations of the strike, however it’s now proposing to make the coverage everlasting.

These strikes have ignited controversy, and mirror a long-running debate in jail programs throughout the nation between the necessity for safety measures and respect for incarcerated individuals’s entry to mail as an important avenue to attach with households and authorized assist.

When jail directors, lawmakers and advocates discuss “scanning” incoming mail, there are two separate issues they will imply. One is the digitization of mail by copying the contents into an digital format so prisoners can learn it on a pill. The opposite which means — extra precisely described as screening, as within the case of New York’s new system — is know-how to bodily take a look at mail for indicators that it has been soaked in, or in any other case contaminated with illicit substances. Incarcerated individuals and advocates have expressed considerations with each sorts of scanning, having to do with privateness, delays and the sentimental worth of handwritten letters and bodily keepsakes.

In New York, common mail from household and pals was already photocopied earlier than the strike. The brand new scanners are a trickier proposition, as a result of authorized mail is protected by attorney-client privilege.

Very like subject drug checks, the scanners aren’t all the time correct. Some advocates and incarcerated individuals say the brand new machines, which have been bought by means of a $4.4 million contract with “contraband detection options” firm RaySecur Inc., are incorrectly flagging contraband-free mail. When a chunk of authorized mail is flagged, the corrections division’s proposed rule permits mailroom employees to withhold the mail with out confirming it truly comprises contraband. A coalition of authorized organizations with shoppers in New York prisons outlined their considerations in a current letter to the company.

“What DOCCS seems to be doing is laying the groundwork for these machines to be the ultimate dedication,” mentioned Antony Gemmell, supervising lawyer with The Authorized Assist Society’s Prisoners’ Rights Venture and co-author of the letter. “They’re utilizing this know-how past its meant scope.”

RaySecur describes its scanners as a software to cut back the quantity of mail that requires additional inspection by employees, not a approach to eradicate that step.

Jeremy Zielinski, who’s incarcerated at Woodbourne Correctional Facility, mentioned he was shocked when a letter from the Second Circuit Courtroom of Appeals was just lately blocked by the mailroom. “It could make the state of affairs extra harmful in the event that they’re relying too closely on tech that does not work proper, doubtlessly reducing safety by turning into lax with their abnormal inspection routines,” he mentioned of guards.

Civil rights lawyer Amy Jane Agnew, who has shoppers who’ve died following overdoses in New York prisons, helps scanning the mail if it saves even one life, and isn’t bothered by having to resend the occasional letter. However, she contends that employees smuggling narcotics into prisons is an even bigger drawback than medication coming by means of the U.S. mail. “The most effective method is placing drug canines within the officer’s locker rooms, as a result of that’s the place it’s coming in.”

This debate is a part of an even bigger dialogue taking part in out in states throughout the nation and within the federal authorities. A just lately launched bipartisan Senate invoice would mandate that the Federal Bureau of Prisons carry out each sorts of scanning at its prisons and jails systemwide. The invoice would require the company to digitally reproduce all mail inside 24 hours for entry on a pill, after which to ship the bodily mail inside 30 days, as long as it’s decided to be free from drug contamination throughout screening.

Advocates for incarcerated individuals argue that digitizing private mail invades privateness and additional chips away at essential connections with family members. And authorized mail is trickier nonetheless, given confidentiality considerations. However mail is an actual avenue for medication in prisons, and corrections unions throughout the nation have expressed concern that dealing with contaminated mail poses critical and even deadly dangers to employees.

Final 12 months, correctional officer Marc Fisher died at a federal jail in Merced County, California, after opening a letter laced with narcotics being handed off as authorized mail. Three individuals concerned within the mail scheme — together with one incarcerated on the jail — have been in the end arrested and charged. The letter was discovered presumptively constructive for fentanyl, artificial marijuana and amphetamines. Fisher reported extreme signs inside minutes of publicity to the mail. His post-mortem discovered that he died of pure causes from a coronary heart assault, in response to a authorities submitting, but in addition that “the circumstances of demise counsel exterior influences.”

The scientific consensus on transient or incidental drug publicity from issues like dealing with drug-soaked mail is that this can be very unlikely to trigger a deadly overdose. Nonetheless, it’s not unusual for police and corrections officers to expertise odd signs after dealing with (or believing they’ve dealt with) illicit substances. Earlier this 12 months in New York, a State Police hazardous supplies staff investigated the reason for guards fainting and exhibiting slurred speech after an alleged publicity to contraband. The staff discovered no proof of “poisonous substances or medication that may be answerable for the employees’ reactions.”

Simply how a lot contraband is coming in by means of mailrooms is unclear. Out there information is usually spotty, if it’s tracked in any respect, and is collected by corrections businesses themselves, inflicting some to query its accuracy. It’s additionally not all the time clear that scanning mail truly helps cut back the stream of medicine: Within the months after the Missouri Division of Corrections began digitizing mail, overdose deaths truly elevated. A New Jersey correctional union consultant, then again, mentioned digitizing mail led to a 50% lower in overdose charges in state prisons.

In any occasion, each sorts of scanning are catching on rapidly. In Tennessee, a pilot program to digitize mail at three ladies’s amenities started on Aug. 1, with incoming private mail to be despatched to Maryland for scanning. In Illinois, there’s been a legislative push to ban most bodily mail coming into prisons, and the state division of corrections is within the technique of deciding the way to use digitizing know-how it bought final fall.

The know-how used to display mail can be evolving quickly, and is numerous throughout jail programs as completely different distributors search to win contracts. Whereas New York and Hawaii are utilizing “T-ray” imaging know-how, pitched as extra delicate and correct than X-ray know-how, others are utilizing “hyperspectral imaging.” And earlier this 12 months, the Virginia corrections division turned the primary on the earth to pilot a CT-based scan (like those utilized in drugs) mixed with AI machine-learning algorithms.