Criminal justice advocates are encouraging Illinois residents to join their campaign and “say no” to mail scanning in state prisons. Mail scanning is a practice implemented at prisons across the U.S. in recent years, allowing prison officials to use programs to scan original physical mail intended for incarcerated people, convert it into digital copies, and transfer them to individual tablets, shared kiosks or print them on paper.
The Illinois Department of Corrections (IDOC) started using mail scanning at all prisons in September. However, this doesn’t include legal mail, such as correspondence from an attorney. The original copy under IDOC’s policy is retained for at least six months.
Restore Justice is a nonprofit that advocates for fairness in the criminal justice system and is one of several criminal and social justice organizations urging Illinoisans to submit written comments by Nov. 24 opposing mail scanning before it becomes a permanent practice in Illinois prisons.
The public can submit their comments by emailing DOC.ProposedRulemaking@illinois.gov and copying JCAR@ilga.gov.
IDOC adopted mail scanning across prisons statewide, following Gov. JB Pritzker’s signing of Public Act 104-0412 into law.
The law requires IDOC to collect and publish data on contraband annually. This move to mail scanning was made despite relevant data showing that it would not address issues with contraband, according to criminal justice advocates. The law, they say, restricts a form of connection between incarcerated people and their loved ones, doesn’t make prisons safer and undermines rehabilitation.
While proponents of mail scanning argue that the program stops the flow of drugs and other contraband from being smuggled into prisons.
“In recent years, smuggling drugs into prison through the mail has become frighteningly common among individuals in custody, and as a result, drug exposures and hospitalizations of prison staff have gone through the roof,” according to AFSCME Council 31, the union that represents most correctional workers in Illinois, said in a news release on Nov. 17.
More information about mail scanning can be found here.
