Many prisons are substituting scanned copies for the delivery of original mail to residents as a way of limiting the amount of drugs entering prisons, according to Prison Policy Initiative.
The prison reform organization reported that 14 states either pay a third–party vendor or use in–house scanners to reproduce electronic copies of incoming mail for delivery to the incarcerated population.
Prison administrators said that by scanning mail, there is a reduction in the amount of contraband entering facilities from the outside. The organization claimed that some jurisdictions have seen the opposite and there is no real evidence of a decrease in drugs within some prison facilities, the Nov. 17 article said.
“I receive mail two to three times a month from friends and family. I don’t believe drugs [are] coming through the physical mail to the extreme of cancelling original letters from being delivered,” said Anthony Ricks, a resident of San Quentin. He also said that his technologically-savvy family members might benefit because they use texting and electronic messaging services.
“The things that inmates look for in receiving mail cannot be duplicated with a scanned copy. You just loose that personal touch,” said Ricks.
While some states have already implemented this policy, others have correctional policies in place that allow them to start scanning mail at their discretion. As of the date of this report, California prisons have not implemented this trend, the report noted.
“I receive mail from my daughter, sister, and a couple of friends. I want to see my daughter’s handwriting or be able to smell my girlfriends perfume on the envelope,” said Andre White, a San Quentin resident.
Mail scanning affects the way incarcerated people communicate with their families because it removes the sentimentality of receiving mail, the story noted. The current incoming mail procedure involves opening, reading and scanning the contents, with the exception of incoming legal mail. The resident would also receive the original mail.
Family members do not want their correspondence located in searchable databases, destroyed, or lost, which is what happens in this costly and complicated practice that also violates a person’s privacy and delays communication between the sender and receiver of the mail, according to the report.
Scanning mail can force incarcerated people and their family members to use a paid service that they would not have needed without the scanning projects. Many things can also go wrong in the process like lost items, incorrectly scanned items, and longer delays of a person receiving their mail, the story said.
“I believe that my family should have both options [original mail or scanned copy], but not just cutting off one in exchange for the other. Some older family members enjoy the option to just answer phone calls and write letters. Who wants to be boxed into one thing?” said White.
