USA Department of Correction - the Revised Mail Policies - Essay Example

?USA Department of Correction: Case of the Revised Mail Policies I.Overview In an effort to prevent contraband materials from entering the jail premises, a change in the procedures in Mail management took place. Prisoners complained about it. Civil Rights groups and media took the issue to the public. Complaints were filed against the Department of Corrections, stating that there are violations of the First Amendment. How then can the Jail Officers carefully enforce the laws against suspected prisoners receiving and selling drugs inside the prison compound? The First Amendment protects the rights of individuals, including prisoners, to their freedom of communication via letters. It makes Jail Officers wonder why other charges like harassment or deprivation from access to court were included in the complaints. Knowing the drug syndicates have lots of means to access lawyers and media, this can be a clear indication of the effectiveness of the new Mail management system against unwanted activities in jail. Or Civil Rights Groups may be right up to a certain extent. There should be more transparency and clarifications concerning the initiatives of the Department of Corrections. What should be made known to the public ought to appease every listener and definitely satisfy courts and lawyers as soon as they hear those explanations for clarifications. The government’s lawyer should be made to clarify that the procedures are merely temporary. And the reason for its being temporary ought to be further explained to judges behind closed doors. Security measures require some level of confidentiality and private discussions among lawyers and judges only. II.Details A.Statement of Facts A new mail policy of the Department of Correction dictated the specification for incoming and outgoing communications by saying that communication “must be on a 5x7 inch pre-stamped postcard”. Even the ink color was restricted. Return address had to be either written or printed. Adhesive label was not allowed. However, there were logical reasons connected to law enforcement against the entry of contraband through mails. The other reason was not directly related to law enforcement, because the Correction Officers simply wanted to make it easier for them to manage the mails daily in the light of insufficient Staff. There was also a policy that would provide three FREE postcards per week for indigents. To be considered indigent, the prisoner “must have less than $ 10.00 balance for 45 days prior to the request for indigent supplies.” If not indigent, a prisoner will have to buy the 5 x 7 postcard for $0.50 cents per post card. As a result of these changes, the Department of Corrections received complaint suits for violating the 1st Amendment civil rights pertaining to freedom of expression. Complainants also accused the department of invading the privacy of prisoners, of interfering with the prisoners’ access to the courts, of harassing prisoners, of not having a legitimate purpose, of being unnecessarily different from most other prisons in the management of packages and letters. Is it right to heed a few legislators who wanted the Corrections Department to revert back to the original process of mailing? What should be done in response to newspaper editorials’ condemnation of the changes believed to be unnecessary? Figure 1 shows the contents of The First Amendment, as follows: Figure 1. The First Amendment “CONGRESS SHALL MAKE NO LAW RESPECTING AN ESTABLISHMENT OF RELIGION, OR PROHIBITING THE FREE EXERCISE THEREOF; OR ABRIDGING THE FREEDOM OF SPEECH, OR OF THE PRESS; OR THE RIGHT OF THE PEOPLE PEACEABLY TO ASSEMBLE, AND TO PETITION THE GOVERNMENT FOR A REDRESS OF GRIEVANCES.” Included in the first amendment are the following implied situations: 1. Censorship is a violation of the freedom of speech. (SCJ Stewart, Potter 1966, Ginzberg v. US, 383 US 463) 2. “The right to think is the beginning of freedom…speech is the beginning of thought.” (SCJ Kennedy, Anthony M. in Ashcroft v. Free Speech Coalition) B. Discussion (Case & Applicable Case Laws) 1.Is this a violation of the First Amendment Rights of a prisoner? The US Supreme Court had decided on many instances of exceptions to the interpretation of violations against the First Amendment. Freedom of communication, in speech or in writing, can be limited to certain circumstances. Examples were made clear in cases submitted and decided by the Supreme Court. Cohen, H. (2009, p.2) said that the US Supreme Court concluded: “The First Amendment provides no protection to obscenity, child pornography, or speeches that constitute advocacy of the use of force or of law violation…where such advocacy is directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action and is likely to incite or produce such action.” This can be applied to the Corrections Department whose officers wanted to prevent the entry of contraband mails and believed that regulating the way prisoners’ mails are labelled was good for the law enforcement against imminent lawlessness as a result of contraband substance entering the jails. Those officers should simply show proof of successful entry of that contraband. And solutions proposed may be valid. These solutions include the effort of transforming and funding the management of mails for prisoners. One of the requirements for a restriction (in the form of a rule or set of procedures) to be valid was mentioned to be “that the government interest be significant or substantial or important but not necessarily as with content-based restrictions, compelling.” (p.7) Everybody knows how proliferation of contraband can lead to a breakdown of peace and order in the prison compounds. And after one prisoner finally loses self-control, the common excuse has been an influence of drugs which causes a person to fail to distinguish between right and wrong even to the extent of killing. Therefore the interest of government is substantial in the sense that it involves life or death inside the jail compound once contrabands proliferate and usage in hiding increase in frequency. Of course, the burden of proof should be with the Corrections Department. C. Was there an invasion of privacy? By definition, an invasion of privacy in this case refers to the intrusion of government personnel or department into the private affairs of persons or legal entities, and using gathered information to the advantage of government (Legal Information Institute 2010). There is no basis for saying that there was an invasion of privacy by opening any letter and reading contents. Only the return addresses and sender’s name were viewed on the postcards as part of the routine inspection. There was a valid reason for inspecting. Contraband materials were suspected to be entering the jails. However, prisoners should not be deprived of privacy through a prohibition by the Corrections Department to let the prisoners use sealed envelopes instead of postcards with contents readable by anybody. There is a commercial “Mailscreen 3005 Xray Scanner” for security purposes available at CES (2012). See Figure 2 below. Figure 2. Mailscreen 3005 Xray Scanner (Source: Control Electronics Security 2012. Viewed December 4, 2012 @ http://www.controlelectronic.com/xray.htm ) This xray scanner will alarm the inspectors automatically for any metal inside the letter. At JTF Business Systems, telephone number 800-444-3299 and with website at http://www.jtfbus.com/jtf/item.cfm?id=6333 , the price is only $ 2,593.50 with one year warranty for parts and labor. However, it cannot determine the presence of illegal drugs. And so the additional requirement would have to be the training of an Anti-narcotic Drug-Sniffing Dog. Its price is $ 20,000 plus the cost of maintaining one for the entire jail compound. (Montgomery, R. 2012) Provision of both the Mail X-ray Scanner and the trained Drug-Sniffing Dog will deter prisoners as well as relatives, friends, and contacts of prisoners from any attempt to send dangerous or suspicious materials including thin blades and contraband materials. D. Does it deprive prisoners access to courts? Limiting prisoners to the use of postcards can always be suspected of being a violation to privacy because the jail officers can read the contents anytime. And if the contents are against them, they can prevent prisoners from successfully communicating with whoever can help them resolve their case or grievance. In this sense, the new procedure of allowing he prisoners to use only postcards, although the rule is silent when it comes to sealed envelopes, can indeed deprive prisoners access to courts. “Communication between a prisoner and a court involved the right of access to the court system.” (Palmer, J. 2010, p. 72) As a matter of fact, mails coming from the court may not be opened by Jail Officers except in the presence of the prisoner, and only for the purpose of inspections against contraband materials (p.77). Prisoners also have the right to communicate with their lawyers. They have a right to communicate to media about their situation in jail. If the Jail Officers simply dispose of these letters because they did not like the contents, how can the prisoners prove that they actually sent such letters but those letters did not reach the recipients? Violation of the First Amendment includes a prison ban against sending letters to media that tend to denigrate the management of jails (p.82). But in this case, there is no ban. The prisoners just want privacy of their communications with the outside world. E. Was there harassment? There was no report of harassment. But it is very possible for prisoners to be threatened and harassed when unscrupulous jail officers discover unwanted written communications on postcards. Prisoners can be killed and the incident can be made to appear like it was the fault of the prisoner. Written communications, if not kept private, can be withheld to the extent that a prisoner is unable to report abuses inside jail to his lawyer. III.Course of Action The best course of action would be to appease the Civil Rights groups by simply explaining why there was a need to change the system, and why there must be a misunderstanding of intentions. Then the Corrections Department can avoid an aggravation of complaints by reverting to the old system right after the immediate purchase of a Mail Scanner and a Drug-Sniffing Dog. Total cost might not even reach $40.000 for a year. In other words, the change of procedures would have to be reported as temporary until such time that a Mail Scanner and Drug-Sniffing Dog is successfully purchased. If the department lacks budget, the amount can be solicited from rich families or companies. To ensure that the mission to prevent the entry of contrabands and to improve security measures will be achieved, a budget including cost of stricter Mail Inspection procedures with the Mail Scanner and the trained Drug-Sniffing Dog should be requested for the next year. It is this course of action that can resolve such an issue involving the need of Jail Officers to ensure enforcement of laws against contraband materials and the need of prisoners and Civil Rights groups, defence lawyers, and media for non-violation of privacy as well as freedom of access to lawyers, court, media, relatives, and friends. References CES. Parcel / Postal Xray Scanners. Control & Electronics Security, Local and International. 2012. Web. Viewed December 4, 2012 @ http://www.controlelectronic.com/xray.htm Cohen, Henry. Freedom of Speech and Press: Exceptions to the First Amendment. Congressional Research Service, October 2009. Diane Publishing. Pdf file available and viewed December 4, 2012 @ http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/95-815.pdf Legal Information Institute. Invasion of Privacy. Cornell University Law School. Definition from Nolo’s Plain-English Law Dictionary, August 19, 2010. Web. Viewed December 4, 2012 @ http://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/invasion_of_privacy Montgomery, Rocky. It Costs $20,000 to Train a Detection Dog According to the Penn-Vet Center. Tennessee K9 Services LLC, October 25, 2012. Web. Viewed December 4, 2012 @ http://tennesseek9services.com/it-costs-20000-to-train-a-detection-dog-according-to-the-penn-vet-center/ Palmer, John W. Constitutional; Rights of Prisoners, 9th Edition. NJ, USA: Anderson Publishing, 2010. Print Read More