I just saw a TV report* about a high security prison and the violence inside, based on gang warfare. A lot of the fighting involves drugs smuggled in to the inmates, and messages passed from gang members on the outside.
The smuggling is pretty complex–(examples: soaking pages of letters in liquid drugs, or smuggling heroin powder by slicing the back off a postcard and inserting it between the layers of cardboard,then gluing it back together. And hiding secret messages in a code like braille between the written lines. )
They showed the guards in the mailroom inspecting each and every piece of paper, yet the guards admitted that the inmates were smarter than the police, and many dangerous items slip through.
So I thought—why do they physically deliver the mail to the inmates? Why not photocopy it , and give them the copies? The inmate will receive his messages, but not the illicit stuff that’s attached.
Inmates` visitation privileges are behind glass walls and non-contact, so why isn’t mail delivery also non-contact?
What am I not understanding?
(* on the National Geographic channel–a reasonably serious documentary, not a sensationalist cop show)
I am certain that it is related to the sanctity of mail in general, not just prisoners. It would be interesting to find out how this has been handled through the years. I know 20 years ago when my brother was in prison that you couldn’t write on both sides of the paper and there were all sorts of other things and that parts of a message could be edited by the guards. I don’t think that being a prisoner allows the jail to steal something from you that is rightfully yours. A photocopy of my daughters first letter to me might be nice, but it is not the same.
Their are some fundamental rights you give up when you go to prison, but you do not give up all of them.
Well, a prisoner could own a pocketknife, but that doesn’t prevent the guards from confiscating it. Auntbeast, would you object to the guards setting aside the original “daughter’s first letter” and returning it to you upon release?
Laws regarding mail vary state to state and by the security level of the individual prison. At the prison where my husband works (medium security) mail* is not opened unless the staff has reason to believe contraband is being coveyed inside an individual piece of it, or unless it’s part of an ongoing investigation by internal investigators or outside law enforcement.
There are a lot of good ideas out there which aren’t actually practicable. This is probably one of them.
Sure, they could open and photocopy every single piece of mail but this would involve hiring additional staff (during a time of extreme burdget crunches for most prisons) paying for the paper and inks needed and the delays in copying hundreds, possibly thousands of pieces of mail each day. (The prison in which my husband works has almost 3,000 inmates.)
In a lot of ways, prison security works on a cost-benefit analysis. The benefit of this sort of system would be preventing what amounts to a tiny amount of drugs entering the prison. The expense outweighs the benefit, especially since there are other ways of dealing with drug use.
It’s generally illegal to interfere with an inmate’s mail. Where I work, we open envelopes and look to see if there is any contraband inside but we don’t read or copy or do anything with the letters. There are a few legal exceptions but they’re rare.
But in those prisons like in the OP, they are already paying guards to go through and inspect all the mail for things as small as braile marks. This is much more tedious and resource intensive than simply photocopying everything.
Not necessarily. Few people are actually skilled at putting coded messages in items or reconstructing them to hide contraband. They may think they are, but I’ve seen examples of tampered mail-- it often doesn’t take an expert to tell something’s a bit wonky. The majority of problems are probably caught right off the bat.
A trained eye can usually see evidence of tampering without a great deal of time invested. Running a hand over a letter to feel for braile or holding it up to the light takes only seconds. Having a drug dog walk down the length of the table would take only moments (however, most prisons don’t have a drug dog on premesis. That would be something worth the investment.) An inspection of a letter could take less than thirty seconds. If the item appears to be tampered with, it can be set aside for more detailed inspection after the rest of the mail is searched.
Photocopying would take much longer. Think about it-- how long does a photocopier take? Prisons usually have slim budgets, so a machine dedicated to this purpose would have to be procured because existing machines are already in use (and often shared by too many people as it is.) Each copy takes a minimum of ten seconds-- sometimes up to thirty, and the prisons likely wouldn’t have top-of-the-line speedy machines.
Next, after the photocopy is made, they have write the name and inmate number of the recipient on each piece to ensure it gets delivered to the right person. This could be a very screwy process unless due care was taken. It would have to be sealed in some fashion to protect the inmate’s privacy, and that also takes time. Maybe each of these processes isn’t long, but these seconds add up, especially when you may be dealing with hundreds or thousands of pieces of mail.
Just imagine it: how long would it take you to photocopy thousands of pieces of paper (because letters are often more than one page), address each one and re-seal it?
Lastly, I again mention the expense of paper and toner which is not trivial, especially for the volume of correspondance that a prison receives.
Some prisons do, but most don’t. The prison where my husband works has a dog on call who is brought in by a State Patrol officer for searches. It’s just too expensive and tine-consuming for most prisons to have their own dog.