Changes made earlier this year for sending mail to people in state prisons and the Rock County Jail could make sending holiday mail a little complicated, but officials say it isn’t too late to get mail to inmates by Christmas.
Instead of handling personal items addressed to incarcerated people directly at state prisons, the Department of Corrections now sends items to an outside company called TextBehind to inspect and scan the mail and then deliver it to prisons.
Authorities said the change was in response to paper mail being soaked in synthetic drugs and sent into prisons. During the month of September alone, they said, 182 incidents occurred where K2, also known as “spice,” and other cannabinoids got into prisons.
The new process comes with no extra charge for senders or inmates. Periodicals, legal mail or other professional mail are exempted from the scanning process.
In October, the Rock County Jail implemented a similar process through a company called Earth Class Mail. Local authorities also said more drugs were being smuggled into the jail in the form of cannabinoid-laced letters to inmates who later rolled them up and smoked them.
Both the DOC and county programs are similar with incoming mail sent to processing facilities in Maryland and Oregon, respectively.
TextBehind, the company working with state prisons, has photocopies printed and delivered to prisons free of charge, but inmates have to wait up to three days to receive them. It takes TextBehind up to 24 hours to screen, photocopy and mail physical letters through the U.S. Postal Service’s two-day shipping service.
The process for Earth Class Mail is similar, but the photocopies are sent digitally to tablets that are regularly accessible to inmates. They can also have letters printed for a fee included in the jail’s phone privileges.
County jail Administrator Capt. Kim Litsheim said there is a demand for printed photos for inmates.
“What we’re finding is that people don’t want pictures on the scanning system,” she said. There is a workaround, however, that allows people to place orders online or through stores that develop photos digitally that can be sent directly to the jail.
Litsheim said the jail’s mail program has been successful up to this point and has eliminated all drugs sent via mail. Prior to the switch, the jail made an announcement giving the public advance notice, but the process was not without hiccups.
“It was a learning curve for everybody,” Litsheim said, adding the jail is working its way through any initial issues.
The DOC has acknowledged complaints surrounding the quality of processed mail, which included images being cut off during the scanning process, but this does not appear to be an issue locally. Litsheim said she has yet to field such complaints.
“I have not heard anything about mail and not being readable, so it seems to be going well,” she said.
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