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There is something like this being used in jails and prisons now. The purpose is to limit the ability of people to sneak in paper bathed in fentanyl or other po

by floam 1y ago

There is something like this being used in jails and prisons now. The purpose is to limit the ability of people to sneak in paper bathed in fentanyl or other potent enough substances. Inmates do not receive originals - incoming mail is scanned at some service provider’s office that a PO Box forwards to, and things are reprinted at the detention center and walked to the inmate. Or people sign up for a faster service where photos / letters are uploaded through an app to skip the snail mail + scanning step. One of these is called pigeon.ly At most participating facilities the only exception to get an inmate physical paper from the outside world is legal mail.

ProllyInfamous 1y ago
>At most participating facilities the only exception to get an inmate physical paper from the outside world is legal mail. This is how some imprisoned authors have managed to publish their samizdat — by sending thoughts/outlines to their lawyer [under the pretense of legal mail] — when their written ramblings might otherwise have been destroyed [as contraband].
robobro 1y ago
> The purpose is to limit the ability of people to sneak in paper bathed in fentanyl Or is it to make even more profit on the backs of prisoners & their families for companies who win juicy contracts from the government? This was being done by private companies before fentanyl. Look into Jpay - they do a lot of slimy things and make a lot of money doing so. The free market in action I guess. https://theappeal.org/prison-tablets-ipads-jpay-securus-gtl/ https://theappeal.org/prison-tablets-ipads-jpay-securus-gtl/
- floam 1y ago
  With the switch to this paradigm at a certain detention center, the time to get an inmate mail simply addressed to them with an envelope effectively tripled, up from what was already like a week, and if you included any irregular shaped paper or cute stuff it’d get mangled in the process. Ask me how I know. It’s certainly an exploitative service taking advantage of a captive audience. I do think the substances thing is making many more smaller jails consider it.

by floam 1y ago

ProllyInfamous 1y ago

>At most participating facilities the only exception to get an inmate physical paper from the outside world is legal mail. This is how some imprisoned authors have managed to publish their samizdat — by sending thoughts/outlines to their lawyer [under the pretense of legal mail] — when their written ramblings might otherwise have been destroyed [as contraband].

robobro 1y ago

> The purpose is to limit the ability of people to sneak in paper bathed in fentanyl Or is it to make even more profit on the backs of prisoners & their families for companies who win juicy contracts from the government? This was being done by private companies before fentanyl. Look into Jpay - they do a lot of slimy things and make a lot of money doing so. The free market in action I guess. https://theappeal.org/prison-tablets-ipads-jpay-securus-gtl/ https://theappeal.org/prison-tablets-ipads-jpay-securus-gtl/

floam 1y ago
With the switch to this paradigm at a certain detention center, the time to get an inmate mail simply addressed to them with an envelope effectively tripled, up from what was already like a week, and if you included any irregular shaped paper or cute stuff it’d get mangled in the process. Ask me how I know. It’s certainly an exploitative service taking advantage of a captive audience. I do think the substances thing is making many more smaller jails consider it.