inmate mail | Legal Information Services Associates LLC

We post news and comment on federal criminal justice issues, focused primarily on trial and post-conviction matters, legislative initiatives, and sentencing issues.

YOU’VE GOT MAIL

Federal Bureau of Prisons Director Colette Peters announced last week that the agency will introduce new procedures in November 2024 in all prisons other than minimum-security facilities. All general correspondence (including photos and commercial greeting cards) sent to prisoners will be photocopied, and only color photocopies will be provided to the inmate.

The new restrictions, which Peters said was a result of “[t]he rise in illicit substances sent to incarcerated individuals through US mail,” will require that all incoming general correspondence must be on plain white paper and in a white envelope. No glitter, labels, stickers, perfume, lipstick, crayon, or marker will be accepted.

Legal and special mail will continue to be opened in the presence of the inmate after BOP investigators verify that the identified sender really is the sender. Peters warned that while efforts would be made to deliver legal mail within 24 hours, that may not happen because “thorough vetting is required to ensure the highest level of security.”

A BOP mailroom supervisor at USP Atwater died last August, apparently from contact with a drug-laden document sent to an inmate by legal mail. Speculation in the media at the time blamed fentanyl for the death, but the three defendants charged in the death thus far have been accused only of a conspiracy to distribute only one named drug, “AB-CHMINACA and MDMB-4en-PINACA, commonly referred to as Spice.”

This is not to say that fentanyl was not a factor, nor that it was uninvolved in the poisoning of a BOP employee at USP Thomson in early September, just that it has not yet been identified as being present. In the Atwater case, it is unlikely that autopsy results will be revealed prior to trial.

United States v. Jones, Case No 1:24-cr-209 (E.D.Cal.)

BOP, Message from the Director and CPL-33 President (October 16, 2024)

AFGE 4070 Press Release, A Correctional Officer was exposed to what was believed to be amphetamines. The staff member was given Narcan before being transported to a local hospital. (September 2, 2024)

– Thomas L. Root

We post news and comment on federal criminal justice issues, focused primarily on trial and post-conviction matters, legislative initiatives, and sentencing issues.

IN WASHINGTON, PLEAS TO TOUGHEN UP ON INMATE MAIL

Senators Robert Casey (D-PA) and Martin Heinrich (D-NM) last week introduced legislation to require the Federal Bureau of Prisons to screen all prison facility mail for contraband.

S. 5128, the Interdiction of Fentanyl at Federal Prisons Act, is intended to “reduce the risk of intentional poisoning or lethal exposure from illicit substances in federal prisons and support the 38,000 BOP corrections officers and staff that are dedicated to keeping prisons safe,” according to a press release.

The bill would require the BOP to deploy equipment and technology to achieve 100 pct scanning capacity of postal and legal mail arriving at Federal correctional facilities, ensure that inmates “receive a digital copy of all mail addressed to them, including legal mail, while remaining consistent with the law and BOP procedures governing attorney-client privilege” and “guarantee the delivery of all contraband-free original mail after it has been screened as soon as is practicable.”

The bill promises to “provide the BOP with an estimated $377 million in savings over a 10-year period.” Although as of this morning, the text has not yet been published, Filetr magazine reported this week that the newly proposed bill appears nearly identical to H.R. 5266, the Interdiction of Fentanyl in Postal Mail at Federal Prisons Act, introduced in August of last year. H.R. 5266 has languished in the House ever since but has collected 127 cosponsors since being introduced by Rep Don Bacon (R-NE), with Republican sponsors outnumbering Democrats 87 to 40.

Exactly how the BOP would pay for all of this scanning and where the “estimated $377 million in savings” would come from remain unexplained.

Filter blasted the bills as being lagnappes for private contractors:

Passive fentanyl exposure is a myth. Mail scanning has always been motivated not by safety, but by money. As the nationwide understaffing crisis deepens in state prison systems as well as the BOP, private contractors like Securus Technologies are promoting their automated mail-scanning services as the solution corrections departments are looking for. Some BOP facilities already use the MailGuard scanning service from SmartCommunications, a private correctional technology firm that claims to have pioneered off-site mail processing.

I suspect that nothing will happen with these bills prior to the expiration of the 118th Congress at the end of the year. If I am wrong, yet another connection to home will be stripped away from inmates for a spurious gain in staff safety.