Metropolis Jails Transfer Digitize Mail Which Led Different Lockups Authorized Fights

Town Division of Correction not too long ago revealed it’s transferring to a digitized mail and package deal supply system meant to curb contraband. Inmate advocates warning the change will trample privateness rights — and that two different states that made comparable modifications have seen no lower in overdoses or drug seizures. 

At an oversight listening to final week, DOC Commissioner Louis A. Molina informed Metropolis Council’s Committee on Legal Justice that his division will quickly begin sending incoming mail addressed to Rikers Island and different metropolis lockups to a non-public firm that first scans the letters, then emails the textual content to detainees. 

Molina mentioned his workers can also be “exploring” restrictions on packages despatched — probably limiting them to gadgets purchased instantly from authorised distributors. The state jail system earlier this 12 months enacted the same coverage over opposition from inmate advocates and family members.

Three of 18 deaths in metropolis jails this 12 months resulted from fentanyl overdoses, the commissioner testified.

Corrections officers in New York and all through the nation have lengthy blamed guests, letters and packages as the first supply of contraband. 

“How does fentanyl get into our jails?” Molina requested throughout the Council listening to, in regards to the highly effective artificial opioid behind most overdose deaths in the previous few years. “The brief reply is that the majority of it enters in letters and packages laced with fentanyl.”

Jail leaders say paper and different objects despatched — together with issues like sneakers, in keeping with the commissioner — are sometimes soaked in fentanyl, suboxone, K2 or methamphetamines.

Nonetheless inmate advocates contend the principle culprits are correction officers and jail staffers who smuggle medicine and different banned supplies like knives. 

As THE CITY reported in February, when guests have been blocked from getting into Rikers early throughout the pandemic, much more medicine flowed via the jails. 

Between April 2020 and Might 2021, authorities seized banned medicine inside metropolis jails over 2,600 instances, our reporting confirmed. That’s greater than double the variety of seizures made throughout the identical time interval from 2018 to 2019, when the jail inhabitants was bigger and extra outsiders got here and went, knowledge confirmed. 

The numbers did additionally present a rise in seizures of mail containing medicine throughout that interval — however these accounted for lower than a 3rd of complete drug recoveries. 

‘Dehumanizing’ Digitizing

In an effort to curb ODs, jails and prisons all through the nation have moved to digitized mail programs and utilizing solely designated distributors for package deal supply. 

Such restrictions violate the free speech rights of the incarcerated, a federal lawsuit argues. Final 12 months, the Knight First Modification Institute at Columbia College sued the Bureau of Prisons over its digital mail pilot program. 

“These applications are dehumanizing,” Institute workers legal professional Stephanie Krent testified on the Metropolis Council listening to. “They’re invasive. They’re very dangerous for people who find themselves incarcerated and their family members.” 

Krent and different advocates contend that bodily mail is irreplaceable and that photocopies or digital scans lose expression present in messages like drawings from kids. 

“We’ve spoken with incarcerated individuals who inform us in regards to the worth and the significance of holding one thing that their beloved one has additionally held and the necessity for them to have the ability to carry that mail out and revisit it at annoying instances,” Krent testified. 

A number of the scans are available blurry or darkened and are sometimes arduous to learn, in keeping with detainees at amenities the place the system is in place. The scans additionally typically take days to reach or by no means seem in some instances. 

A minimum of two state digital-mail applications are additionally being challenged in court docket. 

In Pennsylvania, state jail officers have been pressured to rescind the restrictive new coverage after attorneys sued, arguing it made it not possible for them to speak privately with their shoppers. 

In Missouri, jail officers banned bodily mail this June to stop drug smuggling. The division contracted with Texas-based firm Securus Expertise to scan the letters, photos and magazines. 

However overdoses proceed 4 months into the brand new program, and have even upticked barely, in keeping with a report by the Information Tribune. Earlier than the ban, a mean of 31 folks overdosed per thirty days. That determine rose to 37 between July and September. 

Lack of Transparency

Molina was adamant on the Council listening to that the brand new restrictions would curb drug smuggling.

“Books are for studying, not for lacing with fentanyl,” he testified. “These modifications ought to assist forestall medicine and different contraband from getting into our facility. It ought to save lives.”

The annual variety of nonfatal overdoses within the jail system went up from 203 in 2020 to 309 in 2021, in keeping with the town’s Correctional Well being Providers, which oversees medical take care of detainees.  

In the course of the listening to, Molina additionally addressed contraband smuggling by workers, and harassed that the division has a zero-tolerance coverage for any officer busted with smuggling in medicine. 

Since 2017, contraband investigations have resulted in prison costs towards 25 metropolis correction officers, in keeping with the town’s Division of Investigation. 

Molina and DOI declined to element the present variety of open probes into officers accused of smuggling in medicine or different contraband. 

After the listening to, Molina and his staff additionally refused to reply questions on how the digitized mail system would work and the way quickly it is perhaps launched. 

All metropolis detainees would first want wi-fi tablets to entry the digital mail, however many do not need these units, Molina informed the Council.

“We’re at present in negotiations with a brand new vendor to make sure that each individual in custody has their very own pill, and they’re going to journey and retain that pill,” Molina testified. “Even when they go from one facility to a different. It’ll give us the flexibility to customise sure programming initiatives for that particular person.”

But Molina and DOC representatives have refused to reveal the title of the supplier, how the agency was chosen, and the parameters and value of the potential contract. 

Info, Indefinitely

Inmate advocates and authorized consultants towards the brand new system contend that it’s going to result in unwarranted surveillance. 

“Firms that promote mail digitization applied sciences explicitly promote this,” Krent mentioned. “And this will embody retaining scanned copies of mail indefinitely.”

Companies may also share the knowledge with legislation enforcement, in addition to gather IP addresses and GPS info, she added. 

Some states, and the federal jail system, have since enacted carve-outs for correspondence with attorneys. 

Council members requested Molina why the division isn’t utilizing its physique scanners by itself correction officers to make sure that they aren’t smuggling in medicine. Molina mentioned that jails don’t have sufficient house for the scanners, comparable in measurement to these in airports.

“We don’t have the infrastructure footprint so as to have the ability to set up these physique scanners and all of these entry management factors,” he testified. “And it might come at a really important price.”

Earlier than Molina got here on board in January, metropolis jail officers argued for years that scanners would detect knives and shivs of every kind and drastically scale back the variety of stabbings and slashings. 

However the units, bought throughout the Bloomberg administration, have been blocked for years by state lawmakers against the usage of small doses of radiation on detainees. 

Jail supervisors promised they’d prepare officers to ensure detainees wouldn’t be harmed by repeated radiation publicity from the physique scanners. In 2018, former Gov. Andrew Cuomo signed laws into legislation permitting their use on detainees — and officers. 

The DOC started putting in them in 2019, however they’ve by no means been used to test workers. 

Regardless of guarantees by correction officers to make use of them safely, in January 2020 a jail oversight board really helpful “a direct investigation into misuse” of the six units — which additionally display screen for medicine and different contraband — citing “threat of radiation publicity” because of an absence of workers coaching.

The 56-page report from the town Board of Correction referred to as for a swift corrective motion plan, noting potential well being hazards “to workers and other people in custody and the potential for misinterpretation in scans.”

Metropolis Councilmember Carlina Rivera (D-Manhattan), who chairs the Legal Justice Committee, mentioned she didn’t suppose a brand new mail system was the “silver bullet” to getting medicine out of the jail system. 

“I really feel like there are lots of elements contributing to this disaster,” she informed THE CITY, noting she additionally desires the physique scanners for use on correction officers and different division workers. 

Advocates contend the one individuals who will achieve from the brand new mail system are the for-profit contractors.  

Veronica Vela, a supervising legal professional for the New York Prisoners’ Rights Challenge at The Authorized Assist Society, referred to as the DOC plan “an costly, merciless, intrusive response that burdens incarcerated individuals with no demonstrable profit besides to revenue the trade that markets these companies.”