Kwaneta Harris was cleaning her cell when she came across a manilla envelope filled with letters. Letters bearing crayon drawings from her children; letters with her mother’s signature Chanel No. 5 still emanated faintly from the paper.
“When I smelled it,” said Harris, “I’m transported back to being enveloped in my mother’s safe arms.”
Letters have long been the most tangible connection to loved ones for many people incarcerated in state and federal prisons, but especially Harris and others who live in solitary confinement. Letters like those in Harris’ envelope are being replaced by digital versions and photocopies.
The Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ), where Harris is currently incarcerated, contracts with a private company to scan and digitize incoming mail. Like the growing number of corrections departments around the country doing the same, the TDCJ promotes the false narrative that contraband drugs primarily enter prisons by mail.
In reality, these mail bans are ineffective at reducing the supply of contraband. What they do is deprive people of contact with their loved ones.
“In solitary, we were in the dark.”
In March 2020, the TDCJ implemented Inspect 2 Protect, a program that increased K-9 unit searches on visitation days and banned all incoming mail that wasn’t written on plain white paper. It later slightly relaxed these restrictions, with seemingly arbitrary allowances for greeting cards around certain holidays.
The department claimed that Inspect 2 Protect was necessary because around 0.5 percent of incoming mail for 2019 had been flagged as containing a suspicious substance. This could refer to glitter, or stickers, and the department never confirmed what proportion referred to suspected contraband drugs.
As in other corrections departments around the country, the bigger share of contraband drugs in TDCJ facilities are brought in by staff. In 2021—a year after Inspect 2 Protect was implemented, and with pandemic visitation restrictions in full effect—a statewide TDCJ investigation led to the removal of 15 staff members in connection with bringing in contraband drugs.
Despite initially promising a gradual rollout, in September 2023, the TDCJ put all facilities on lockdown and banned personal mail statewide. Under the new policy, letters, photos, greeting cards and postcards are redirected to a digital mail processing center to be scanned and uploaded onto tablets. Those who don’t have tablets can receive black-and-white photocopies of their mail. The tablets are provided by Securus Technologies, the same contractor that owns the digital mail center. Securus did not respond to Filter‘s request for comment for this article.
“In solitary, we were in the dark,” said Harris of the arrival of the mail ban. “Although the claim was because of drugs, that’s not an issue in women’s prisons … our number-one smuggled contraband is makeup, not K2 or cell phones.”
Britney Robertson, a solitary confinement specialist with Texas Prisons Community Advocates, found that packets of advocacy materials she mailed to people in solitary took around 80 days to arrive. By that point, the rules surrounding what types of mail were allowed had changed twice.
Legal mail is still supposed to be delivered to the prison mailrooms, but was getting routed to the digital mail center. Robertson told Filter that out of 50 people she works with, at least seven sent confidential legal mail that was opened, read and scanned. She recalled how one person in solitary had been unable to sign the legal cremation paperwork after his father died. Legal mail requiring a signature is supposed to go to the law library in the recipient’s living unit, but the paperwork was rejected due to the belief that it had to go to the digital mail center.
Thomas Whitaker, a journalist in solitary confinement, told Filter that initially the turnaround time for his scanned mail was more than three months. “It was like the mailroom personnel had no idea what the actual policies were,” Whitaker said. “So they sent absolutely everything to the center.”
While some pieces of mail were delayed for months, others went missing entirely. Legal mail was delivered already opened. Letters intended for the digital mail center were delivered to the mailrooms and vice versa. The TDCJ did not answer Filter‘s inquiries.
“This period so reinforced the belief that mailing items to me was pointless,” Whitaker said, “that virtually everyone I am in contact with now uses the messaging app.”
When the tablets were first rolled out, Harris had access to the same features as people in general population.
Securus tablets include a feature called eMessaging that works like a closed-network version of email. People in custody are also able to receive certain photos and short videos, but not send them. In 2023, the TDCJ estimated that 93.3 percent of people in general population had tablets, and 89 percent of those in solitary confinement.
When the tablets were first rolled out, Harris had access to the same features as people in general population. These included options to purchase Associated Press subscriptions, and old movies and TV shows. In 2022 the TDCJ removed that access for people in solitary, creating a contraband market for those in gen pop to rent out their unlocked tablets.
In the wake of a lawsuit against the TDCJ by Dennis Hope, who spent 27 years in solitary confinement, each of the four indoor cages where Harris and others in her unit are taken for individual recreational time got a television set. She told Filter that for the one hour a day they’re on, they’re tuned to Fox News.
According to Robertson, it usually takes between one and three weeks for her eMessages to be delivered to the tablets of incarcerated people in solitary.
“I just have to hope that if somebody needs help today,” Robertson said, “that they have the money to call.”
Every message sent through a tablet requires at least one digital stamp, like sending a letter through the mail. Though they’re about half the cost of a postal service stamp, requiring them for every eMessage is akin to requiring people in the free world to pay for a stamp for every individual email or text message. Harris spent $822.76 on these stamps in one year.
During the transition, both Harris and Whitaker experienced a glitch that double-charged them for each message. Harris was only refunded–in stamps, rather than money—after publishing an article in Prism on the company’s predatory pricing structure. Whitaker never received a refund of any kind.
“When guards would taunt me about [how my family] forgot about me, I’d pull out my letters.”
For Whitaker to complete his master’s degree from solitary confinement, he relied on printouts of hundreds of academic journal articles, which he reread and underlined and covered with notes in the margins.
“I was able to spread these out on my floor and make comparisons and connections,” he told Filter. “I can’t do any of that with the tablet. I don’t know how I would have managed under the current system.”
Before the mail ban, Harris could receive family portraits her children had drawn. She could touch the same paper they had touched.
“Before they banned crayons,” Harris said “my children drew pink hearts with deep indentations that I spent hours tracing with my fingertips.”
By now, she’s rubbed the grooves nearly level with the paper. The scent of her mother’s perfume on the paper is fading. But they still give her something to hold on to.
“When guards would taunt me about my conviction and sentence … about being a disappointment to my family and [how] they forgot about me, I’d pull out my letters.”
Image (cropped) of Securus Digital Mail Center via Oklahoma Department of Corrections/YouTube