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Ever get some special letter, card, or picture from a friend or loved one that you held onto, maybe even taped to your cube or office wall? Is it something you still look at fondly, something that lifts your spirits whenever you're down? Certainly, a thoughtful card or letter is much nicer than a thoughtful email.
Now imagine your special keepsake being scanned, censored, and converted into a digital file that you can only view from a tablet — assuming you can afford the fee to access the tablet. The original has been destroyed; it's gone forever. You'll never get to see or feel it in your hands.
It sounds almost too cruel, like something you'd find in a Fallout game. Unfortunately, it's reality for more and more people incarcerated in US prisons.
I've been writing to an incarcerated person for a while now myself. I find the process incredibly rewarding; I think about my friend all the time and wish them well. Unfortunately, the scanning and processing takes absolutely forever, so in a given year we only exchange 3 letters per side. The digitized files that I receive have names censored out of them; I have no idea what's removed from my letters before my friend receives them. For me, this is all too reminiscent of exchanging letters with my grandmother in Iran before she died. Agents there would straight-up open the envelope, confiscate any valuables inside, marker over anything they didn't like, then re-seal the envelope and send it back on its merry way.
Over 30 US states now digitize the mail passing in and out of prisons, relying on AI to judge what's kosher and what isn't. If you thought AI was great with resumes, just wait until you task it with threat detection! It's been working so well that one nonprofit organization had to change its name: the word fight, used in any context whatsoever, gets flagged.
Once mail is scanned, it's only accessible by tablets that have to be paid for. Incarcerated people are already nickled and dimed for a ridiculous number of things and surely don't need more fees.
It doesn't stop at mail, either. The latest tech is also being used to eliminate physical visitation. Because if there's anything the pandemic taught us, it's that nothing beats seeing your loved ones exclusively on a screen for years at a stretch.
The states justify these egregious measures by playing the drug card. They're necessary to stop drugs from entering the prisons. But these states stop short of providing evidence to show that these tech-facilitated practices are actually having the intended effect. Even if they magically solved drug trafficking forever, could any result truly justify the vast harm being inflicted upon incarcerated people, their families, and their friends? Physical mail and visitation are necessary lifelines and psychological boosts for those who might otherwise have nothing and no one to hold onto during an unimaginably difficult time of their lives.
Do I really have to explain the benefit of parents and children exchanging homework, letters, and pictures?
I'm angry about this on so many levels. If you are, too, here's some stuff we can do to fight work against this together:
- Support prison abolition with your time, money, and/or IT superpowers. Forced prison labor is slavery. The entire punitive model is cruel, biased, and far less effective than approaches like restorative and community-based justice. Moving on is long overdue and the best way to make all of this stop.
- Avoid working for companies that facilitate these practices. Tell your friends not to work for them, either. If you're stuck working for them for survival's sake, look for ways to enact positive change from the inside.
- Spread the word of what's happening. Most people have no idea. Use your knowledge to educate technical and non-technical folks. They might want to do something about this, too.
- Write to incarcerated people yourself. Like Bob Ross said, "Everybody needs a friend." Knowing there's someone in your corner who cares about you makes all the difference in the world. Sites like WriteAPrisoner.com will match you up with a pen pal.
A drop of water seems harmless, but get enough of those together and you carve out the Grand Canyon. If we all do something to help, however big or small, our massed effort becomes something powerful. As tech professionals, we are especially empowered to push back on these cruel and abusive practices. We must act now, before they move out of prisons and into mainstream society.
Do you want your post office to start doing this?
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