NYC Jails Need Controversial Contractor to Digitize Mail

The New York Metropolis Division of Correction desires to cease incarcerated folks from receiving bodily mail inside metropolis jails. The division, often called DOC, mentioned the proposed adjustments are a part of an effort to extend security within the jail system by cracking down on unlawful contraband following the deaths of 19 folks final yr at Rikers Island, town’s jail complicated. A number of of the folks died from obvious drug overdoses, together with no less than one from fentanyl.

The principle supply of contraband inside metropolis jails, although, has been corrections employees, not mail, critics of the coverage change mentioned. As a substitute, the transfer to scrap bodily mail opens the door to personal corporations to arrange surveillance programs towards incarcerated folks. Metropolis officers and advocates are involved about an obvious plan to contract with an organization known as Securus — a number one supplier of phone calling systems for prisons and jails with a controversial past — to digitize detainees’ mail and make it obtainable to searches.

“Contractors are explicitly promoting unprecedented surveillance,” mentioned Stephanie Krent, a employees lawyer on the Knight First Modification Institute at Columbia College, talking about corporations like Securus specializing in jail communications. “That’s surveillance that’s going to fall most harshly on marginalized communities.”

The proposed adjustments observe a nationwide trend of prisons and jails shifting to cease incarcerated folks from receiving bodily mail. Prisons in Pennsylvania stopped bodily mail in 2018, and prisons in Massachusetts began sending incarcerated folks photocopies of authentic letters. Final yr, prisons in New Mexico and Florida adopted related adjustments, and Texas has additionally restricted in-person mail. There’s little proof that these adjustments have stopped the stream of medication, the Vera Institute wrote in a March report: “With no proof that these bans enhance safety, it’s solely the for-profit contractors that stand to benefit from these preparations.”

One public official to boost the alarm in regards to the mail coverage adjustments proposed by the Division of Correction, together with the association with Securus, is New York Metropolis Comptroller Brad Lander.

“The proposed variance additionally represents a large-scale violation of the privateness and civil rights of individuals in DOC custody,” Lander wrote in a January 6 letter. “That is of specific concern on condition that the tablets, scanning, and supply companies will apparently be offered, for revenue, by Securus Applied sciences, a vendor that has repeatedly undermined the privateness and civil liberties of individuals in custody.”

The Division of Correction mentioned the adjustments are designed for the protection of each employees and detainees. “Protecting our employees and people in our custody secure is paramount, and one of many key methods we are able to do that’s by eradicating contraband in our jails,” a Division of Correction spokesperson mentioned in an announcement to The Intercept. “Now we have zero tolerate [sic] for anybody smuggling contraband into our amenities, and that features our employees, contracted suppliers, and guests. Scanning mail onto tablets won’t solely assist maintain medicine out of our jails, however it’ll additionally possible improve the effectivity of mail processing. We’re doing all that we are able to to make sure that our jails are safer for all who work and dwell right here.”

The Division of Correction didn’t reply to questions on whether or not it will contract Securus to digitize mail if this system is accredited, however Danielle DeSouza, a spokesperson, pointed The Intercept to a Metropolis Council listening to the place Division of Correction Commissioner Louis Molina addressed an current contract with Securus to provide digital tablets in New York Metropolis jails, which could possibly be used for studying digitized mail.

Jade Trombetta, a spokesperson for Securus solely mentioned the corporate had not and would by no means promote knowledge associated to its digital mail service. Trombetta later requested for extra time to reply questions however then referred The Intercept to the Division of Correction.

There’s ample proof in New York that jail guards play a central function in contraband smuggling. Since 2017, greater than two dozen guards have been arrested for bringing a wide range of medicine into metropolis jails after inquiries by town’s Division of Investigation.

“Correction officers and employees are a serious entry level for the smuggling of contraband into the Metropolis’s jails,” Diane Struzzi, director of communications on the Division of Investigation, mentioned in an announcement to The Intercept.

The Division of Investigation isn’t taking a place on the corrections division’s proposed adjustments to the mail system, however earlier investigations by the company have offered proof that guards are sometimes the supply of medication. The quantity of medication seized inside metropolis jails spiked after New York Metropolis stopped permitting in-person jail guests throughout the top of the Covid-19 pandemic, The Metropolis reported in February. Whereas some medicine had been seized in mail, the majority of medication seized between April 2020 and Might 2021 got here from different sources.

Prohibiting bodily mail wouldn’t cease the stream of medication into town’s jails however would improve punishment and surveillance for incarcerated folks and their family members, mentioned Lucas Marquez, the affiliate director of civil rights and regulation reform at Brooklyn Defender Providers, a public protection group.

“It’s not going to assist the overdoses or the usage of medicine within the jails, which we all know is an issue,” Marquez mentioned. “We all know that the majority medicine are available in by way of employees, and this isn’t going to have an effect on that.”

At a listening to earlier this month, the Board of Correction postponed a vote on the requested adjustments till its subsequent assembly in February.

Securus, the corporate advocates and elected officers mentioned would get the mail contract, has a controversial historical past. Underneath a earlier contract with the Division of Correction, the corporate illegally recorded telephone calls between incarcerated folks and their attorneys.

The corporate has additionally come underneath hearth for illegally recording privileged authorized telephone calls between incarcerated folks and their protection attorneys in different states, in addition to for upcharging incarcerated folks and their family members for calling companies.

Whereas New York Metropolis sometimes holds a aggressive bidding course of for contracted companies, there was no request for proposal or aggressive bidding course of for the proposed adjustments to the mail system.

Elected officers in New York are already elevating alarms in regards to the potential for Securus to deal with digitizing town’s jail mail. Given the corporate’s historical past, the proposed adjustments “can be considerably rising the Metropolis’s legal responsibility,” Lander, town comptroller, wrote in his January 6 letter.

In a January 9 letter to the Division of Correction, 10 Metropolis Council members, led by Crystal Hudson and Carlina Rivera, raised their very own fears. “We’re involved in regards to the essentially dehumanizing results of such a system in addition to the privateness and surveillance issues that may include it,” the members wrote.

Along with protecting letters, the Division of Correction has additionally proposed a change that may restrict packages obtained in metropolis jails to a preapproved record of distributors like Amazon and Walmart, which might cease incarcerated folks from receiving customized care packages from family members or advocates.

The mail and bundle proposals, mixed with ongoing recording of telephone calls “implies that practically each interplay a member of the family has with a cherished one who’s incarcerated will probably be tracked and recorded,” the council members wrote. “Such knowledge might be retained far into the long run and be used towards folks even when they’ve by no means been charged with a criminal offense, have been launched from jail, or have had fees dismissed. These information will possible be shared with regulation enforcement, no matter any acknowledged coverage. Such widespread surveillance raises severe First and Fourth Modification issues.”

The Division of Correction is making an attempt to downplay the extent of the proposed adjustments, mentioned Krent, the Knight First Modification Institute lawyer, “however primarily what the supplier advertises is a dragnet that may sweep up all incoming mail and can retailer it.” Such a change far exceeds conventional overview of mail in prisons in jails, Krent mentioned. “And that’s actually scary.”

“It should result in an enormous improve in surveillance and monitoring of anybody that’s making an attempt to ship mail into amenities,” she mentioned. Most contractors say they’ll maintain mail for no less than seven years following the tip of the recipient’s interval of incarceration. “That’s actually scary when you concentrate on the truth that most people who find themselves incarcerated are there on a transient foundation, particularly at a spot like Rikers the place persons are awaiting trial,” mentioned Krent. “The mail is being saved although neither the recipient nor the sender has been convicted of any crime.”

The adjustments might have a chilling impact on free speech for each incarcerated folks of their family members — and probably expose folks to authorized liabilities. Protection attorneys are involved that Securus might promote info collected from mail or share the knowledge with regulation enforcement. If the knowledge is saved in a searchable database, it may be used extra simply by regulation enforcement, Marquez mentioned. “There’s undoubtedly an enormous query when DOC and regulation enforcement have entry to a database that has all this info,” he mentioned. “These ‘responsible by affiliation’ networks begin forming.”

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Securus is a business entity that has settled quite a few lawsuits over improperly recording telephone calls inside prisons and jails. “What safeguards, if any, are there for them to be utilizing that knowledge, to promote that knowledge, or to in any other case share that knowledge with regulation enforcement?” Marquez mentioned. “We all know from their historical past of recording lawyer telephone calls and lawsuits towards all of them throughout the county, that they don’t have safeguards, they don’t care about safeguards. They’d somewhat pay a settlement.”

Some advocates are involved that if accredited, the proposed adjustments would result in extra violence inside jails.

“The system always punishes folks with the least energy, which is incarcerated folks and their family members, with out truly taking any accountability for the Division of Correction themselves,” mentioned Ashley Conrad, an organizer with Freedom Agenda, a member-led venture that organizes with individuals who have been instantly or not directly impacted by Rikers Island; Conrad has a nephew who’s incarcerated at Rikers. “DOC and COBA” — the Correction Officers’ Benevolent Affiliation — “try to color this image that this mail variance goes to maintain our jails safer however it’s truly not,” she mentioned. “It’s going to trigger extra violence. It’s inhumane, it’s going to be much more hurtful.”

Getting a handwritten letter out of your daughter or spouse could possibly be the factor that retains an incarcerated particular person from going right into a darkish psychological area, Conrad mentioned. “Say your spouse sprays her fragrance on a letter. It’s one thing to maintain your thoughts in the suitable place,” she mentioned. “Individuals are actually in a gladiator college all day the place you’re combating in your security by all means. Any little factor can set off you.”

It’s not clear that the Division of Correction has eradicated different potential ways in which medicine are coming into jails, Rivera, the council member for part of downtown Manhattan, advised The Intercept. “Till we are able to truly see that the Division of Correction has put ahead an effort to get rid of all different potential variables, it simply appears merciless to get rid of this one form of tangible human connection that’s made by way of bodily mail.”

Rivera’s workplace has requested knowledge from the division on plans to contract with Securus, and he or she mentioned she has issues in regards to the risk given the corporate’s historical past.

“Now we have plenty of questions as to why this administration would go that route,” Rivera mentioned. “I don’t have any particulars on whether or not an RFP was issued” — a request for proposals that asserts venture bids for public contracts.

“Now we have had problem after problem in making an attempt to safe info, knowledge from DOC and from this administration,” Rivera mentioned. “That lack of transparency has been extremely irritating.”

Hudson, a council member representing elements of Brooklyn, advised The Intercept the proposed adjustments wouldn’t deal with the rising disaster at Rikers and known as for the complicated to be shut down.

“The proposed variances — stripping New Yorkers of their proper to bodily mail and additional privatizing Metropolis companies — do nothing to handle the protection points the Board of Correction is in search of to treatment. Reasonably than addressing the rot of their ranks, the Board is bent on additional criminalizing, surveilling, and exploiting incarcerated New Yorkers and their family members,” Hudson mentioned in an announcement. “Our reflex has all the time been to punish. Now, now we have the chance to form the dialogue in Metropolis Corridor.”

There are quite a few different adjustments the Division of Correction might make to crack down on the presence of medication in its amenities with out taking away bodily mail on the additional expense of the psychological well being and stability of incarcerated folks, mentioned Veronica Vela, a supervising lawyer on the Authorized Assist Society Prisoners’ Rights Venture. The division, as an example, might make guards undergo the identical scanners that incarcerated folks and their family members should undergo throughout visitations.

As a substitute, Vela mentioned, the division prioritized different adjustments that might do extra hurt than good. Quickly after he began the job in January 2022, Molina, the Division of Correction commissioner, sought to get rid of a rule that barred employees from wearing cargo pants. The rule had been in place to cease smuggling of medication and alcohol after an undercover metropolis investigator was in a position to smuggle medicine and alcohol right into a DOC facility utilizing cargo pants. Town, nonetheless, rebuffed the request to alter the rule.

“It’s a fairly telling transfer on his half,” Vela mentioned, “that he comes into this division that’s in full disaster and disarray, and he’s like, ‘You already know what, I’m gonna get these officers cargo pants.’”