Pennsylvania inmates boycott for-profit prison mail.
The following are excerpts from an article about a Florida-based prison profiteer, Smart Communications US, Inc. which is privatizing inmate mail FOR PROFIT. When will it end?
A PA inmate is urging “all prisoners to immediately cease sending and accepting mail in response to the draconian new prison policies of current Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf.
Eliminating the right of prisoners to send and receive correspondence via postal service is the most controversial aspect of a sweeping crackdown imposed in September by the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections. Prisoners will no longer be allowed to receive mail directly at state correctional facilities. Instead, their mail is being routed through a third-party company that rakes in profits from the enslavement of U.S. workers.
The PDOC awarded a $4 million contract to Smart Communications, a Florida-based firm that bills itself as a “family-owned business” with “a reputation as the true innovator in the prison marketplace.”
Under the contract, Smart receives all letters and photographs, photocopies them, stores the contents on its private servers and then forwards the photocopies to prisoners. Smart’s website boasts, “We currently have over 50 clients worldwide.” That means the company is paid to seize, open and duplicate the private correspondence of prisoners held in over 50 U.S. facilities. Pennsylvania is the 19th state to hire the company.
NOTE: INCLUDING FLORIDA!
[The Inmate’s] boycott announcement comes as the American Civil Liberties Union and many public defenders have announced their intention to stop sending legal mail through the Pennsylvania prisons.
“Every prisoner must act as an individual and as a collective front not to send mail to the third party,” he said. “This is not only a breach of our privacy but a breach of attorney-client privilege.”
Under the Smart system, all supposedly protected correspondence pertaining to prisoners’ legal cases is handled — and opened — by prison staff. Copies are made and given to prisoners, but the originals are retained by the PDOC for 15 days, after which they are allegedly destroyed. Regular personal correspondence is stored on Smart servers for seven years. Video recordings of the mail-opening process are supposed to be purged every five days.
“But [the purging of legal correspondence] is a flat out lie, What they’re not telling you is that they’re keeping it. And they can use it against you at any point in the future.”
The Innocence Project, the Abolitionist Law Center and the Pennsylvania Institutional Law Project are partnering with the ACLU to bring a lawsuit against the PDOC for this unprecedented attack on attorney-client confidentiality, which they say is “indefensible.”
The for-profit privatization of the prison mail system is having a deadly, chilling effect on prisoners’ legal right to private correspondence with their defense attorneys and on their much-needed human contact with the outside world.
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Do anybody know who to talk to about this private own SCI smart communications jail in Florida, that’s not letting my send money to my brother and every other site I use never heard of them and different sites I called never heard of them, i can’t even find my brother in the system, i need help can somebody tell me who I need to talk to
I have sent mail daily to this supposed smart communications company since 10/18. No mail has been received. Some days I put 5 envelopes in the mail because my children sent individual letters. I thought it would decrease the risk of missing pages like I have been hearing about. I have received letters from my love and he thinks I am not writing. My concern is the lost information.. the lost pictures.. private intimate information from loved ones where this is their only means of emotion. Sending personal information so my children can be placed on a waiting list? Am I okay with theae third Party employees reading or storing this information? Let alone the delay that this company is causing and the time frame of waiting for approval. The PA DOC and the governor should have been proactive with the procedures of this new mail system they implemented. It is only proper for any business to conduct formal matters in this way. The fact that it is proven Smart Communication’s cannot handle the workload and he job responsibilities that they have been contracted to do should be valid enough to rescind the contract. This company is not capable of providing services they claim to do. Making these issues less of a priority because these inmates of correctional institutions that we are speaking about is inhumane. The empathy for the families involved deserve the priority because we are people of this society in the outside world. We follow guidelines that we are told to do. In return we expect what we are promised. Fair treatment and timeframe of what is stated. I would expect more from this so called regulated system. The negativity surrounding this should shame the PA DOC and the officials who govern it.
I gave up trying to send mail to camp hill . I sent mail from 9/22-10/6 . Daily to Smart Communications. Only three pieces of mail were ever received by the inmate , the first two and the last one . Everything else in between did not get to the inmate . The mail guard tracker showed a piece of mail received by camp hill back around oct 2 that the inmate never got . The mail guard tracker does not show a piece of mail that the inmate did get . The envelopes were correctly marked with the MG number . The new mail system is separating families from their loved ones during the time that the suicide risk is the highest – the first two months . At least let us send postcards to those in classification who can not have tablets during this 90 day transition period . That’s only humane as we can’t reliably reach them by mail and If we can it takes a minimum of 14 says . Usually longer . A postcard from home could prevent a suicide, knowing that somebody cares . Seems worth it to me .
Seriously!? So this mail guard tracker is a waste then. It is already irritating that the mail has to go all the way to Florida when he’s 11 miles from home, but now the system is unreliable too. I agree with you, Don – at least a postcard. Geez. My husband’s letters are full of worry because he isn’t hearing from me. But I am writing and writing and writing. This is punishing the inmates and the families and friends as well, but especially the inmates and as you say, mail could very well help prevent suicides. I’m just so frustrated right now.
The mail guard tracker is far from accurate. A post card bought and sent from the US Post Office is fairly tamper proof . There might be a few criminals out there who would try to spray it with something so buy the postcard at the post office , fill it out there and have the post office put their own stamp or identifier on it and mail it all in one step . There are many easy ways it would seem like to be sure postcards bought from from the USPS and sent directly from the post office at the time of purchase are not contaminated with contraband . It would seem like the PA DOC could come up with a safe postcard policy until the 90 day period is up when Smart Communications it is said will be processing mail more timely . I feel your pain Mrs Bear as do likely thousands of others .