The federal Bureau of Prisons seems set on making it difficult for its captives to forge connections with anyone beyond the inner circle they entered with – including people from advocacy organizations.
Why else, for example, would you be asked on the form you must complete to become an approved visitor whether you knew the person prior to their incarceration? I’ve heard from a number of people both in prison and out that if you are honest and say “no,” your visit will be denied, 9 times out of 10.
This is true at state prisons as well, and I asked a warden who I met at a conference why being a new acquaintance is an immediate reason for denial. He admitted that he didn’t know why. “It’s just been a rule for as long as I can remember.” (And no one questions it!) One friend was engaged to marry a woman he had come to know through letters, and she was never allowed to visit. At least most state prisons offer video visits. The BOP has so far offered that benefit only in women’s prisons.
BOP bans all but one-to-one emails
Now, the BOP has taken aim specifically at advocacy organizations, although that is not its stated intention. First, the agency limited emails to 10 people at a time. Then, this month, the limit was scaled back even further to one. Imagine organizations like More Than Our Crimes, which has a prisoner list in the thousands, sending emails out via CorrLinks (the prison email service) one by one. It’s simply too time-consuming.
The BOP’s stated reason
In 2020, the DOJ’s Office of the Inspector General issued a report that analyzed the BOP’s efforts to “prevent radicalization” by monitoring inmates’ communication. During the years examined in the report, there were 512 individuals in the BOP who were identified as having a “nexus to international or domestic terrorism” (fewer than 1% of the high of 219,000 inmates). All of their emails are supposed to be screened. But because the BOP is concerned that others may be radicalized after their incarceration, the agency also randomly monitors a sample of emails (and phone calls, letters, etc.) to and from all inmates. (The target is at least 5%.)
However, during the OIG’s investigation, “several” BOP staff members reported that it is not possible to meet that standard, thus necessitating measures to reduce the volume of emails. Although the BOP uses software to search emails by key words, the OIG concluded that the process was insufficient.
Here is the key section of the OIG report: “We found that the BOP does not have sufficient control over inbound emails…Several personnel said they have detected radical emails being sent to multiple inmates. BOP staff also expressed concern to us about the possibility of a mass email being sent to all inmates in a particular group such as Al Qaeda, Aryan Circle, Al-Shabaab or ISIS, directing them to take coordinated action on a certain day.”
BOP staff told the OIG team that the agency had not banned mass emails previously “due to legal concerns” – indicating that the agency understood that its recent action likely is a violation of rights related to the First Amendment and free speech.
Is this fair or even effective policy?
What I wonder is just how many group emails have contained radicalizing messages, compared to those sent to individuals? No data or comparisons were offered. There also is no discussion of the downsides of a blanket ban on group emails:
- Staff at FAMM, the largest of the prison-reform organizations, report that they have responded to the ban by resorting to the postal service instead, consuming many hours of labor. So, rather than eliminate such communications, the mail to BOP prisons that must be screened and copied (to eliminate concerns about drugs being sprayed on the paper) has now increased.
- An individual who uses a prison e-newsletter to solicit legal business is contracting with a company that has developed a hack that takes over a user’s CorrLinks account and automates the dissemination of emails, one by one. In return, he includes an ad for the company’s text-messaging app at the top of every newsletter. I have no doubt that other people like this lawyer are using the same service. The problem is, use of text messaging by inmates violates BOP rules. So how does this workaround serve the overall good?
- Lisa Legal, another provider of prison newsletters, says it has stopped its service altogether. Instead, readers are asked to copy the content and send it in on their own. The newsletters contain highly useful summaries of recent court and other rulings. The withholding of this information certainly doesn’t serve inmates and their families.
- And then you have small nonprofits like More Than Our Crimes; we can’t stop our newsletters because they are core to our mission. But we don’t have the access to labor that FAMM has and we also don’t want to violate BOP rules. We will likely have to pay to use an outside service to address, stuff and mail our envelopes – using financial resources that we should be using on other services.
The OIG team recommended in the 2020 report that “the BOP establish controls that mitigate the risk of inmates communicating with unknown and un-vetted parties.” Then why doesn’t the BOP implement a process to vet organizations and parties that need to send mass emails? Wouldn’t this accomplish the same desired end? Emery Nelson from the BOP’s Office of Public Affairs told me in an email that the new policy still “encourages and allows appropriate contact between inmates and pro-social organizations.” How? In reality, the policy is like using a sledgehammer for a nail – splintering the wood and weakening the foundation at the same time.
This same principle is obvious in a lot of other BOP actions — try to reduce risk to zero (an impossible goal), while sacrificing benefits without due consideration. For example, the Hazelton prison complex in West Virginia doesn’t allow any food from vending machines during visits. That may reduce the risk of visitor-introduction of contraband to some small degree, but it also makes visits by children for any length of time uncomfortable and tedious. It’s already hard for many family members to travel the necessary distance to visit; this restriction makes visits even more difficult. There is ample evidence that maintaining family contact is critical to rehabilitation. But it seems that the BOP only thinks about security, rather than factoring in long-term benefits as well (as they do in many European countries).
Update: I communicated with BOP Deputy Director Joshua Smith about this issue and he said a solution is in progress. Stay tuned.
