The Cost of Communication: NC Prisons Extort Families to Pay for Mail
IF YOUR TIME IS SHORT
This blog post was originally written December 8th, 2021
I have not received mail since October 18, 2021. This fact may not seem important to some, but it is to me. I have been serving life without parole in North Carolina for 20 years. During that time, I have built a small base of friends who used to write regularly. Before October 18th I received mail each day. My pen pal Sandy sent a postcard every week depicting images of lions, raccoons, or pictures of the exotic places where she traveled on vacation. Sandy scribbled handwritten puns on the back of the postcards, like: "What do you call a fake spaghetti noodle? An im-pasta." My friend Faye sent personal pictures of her and her three daughters weekly. J used to see their Halloween costumes, Christmas gifts, and sometimes dishes Faye prepared for dinner. My friend Jack sent newspaper clippings so I could keep up with recent news, because Nash Correctional Institution, the prison where I am housed, no longer orders a subscription. Receiving communications helped me to feel remembered in a world from which I have been segregated for two decades. They made me feel like a human valued by other humans. But now, that love is gone because the North Carolina Department of Public Safety Adult Corrections and Juvenile Justice (NCDPS) began using TextBehind.com-a third-party mail provider and outlawed all personal mail sent to correctional institutions on October 18. 2021.
Now, no one wants to write me.
What Is So Bad About TextBehind?
TextBehind is a third party mail vendor that receives personal mail for prisoners, then processes it for distribution before it enters an institution. A person can send a letter, picture, card, or drawing through TextBehind in two ways. 1) They can create an online account, and TextBehind will email the item to the prison, where mail room staff prints it. Or, 2) a person can send a letter or picture to a post office box where workers scan it, then TextBehind emails it to the prison. The process sounds convenient, but sending mail through TextBehind presents concerning price gouging and privacy issues for senders. TextBehind is in business to make money. Pricing for its electronic services vary, depending on whether or not a prison is a "Partner" or "Standard" institution. If a prison is a partner, TextBehind provides printing equipment. Also, the price of its services drops from $1.29 per item to $0.99. If a consumer buys a "discount deal" for say $19.95, the price is further reduced to $0.49 per item. While lower prices seem alluring, the service is the same, offering no justification in fluctuation of pricing, but TextBehind entices people to ante up more money for the same service, just to get a lower price on services they must use once purchased. On top of that, TextBehind charges $4.95 for credit card transactions, plus a 4% service charge added to state and federal taxes.
If a person decides not to pay TextBehind's exorbitant fees and sends a physical letter, TextBehind caps communications with a page limit not divulged on their website. They reject letters written or printed on both sides of a sheet of paper. A TextBehind promotional brochure informs consumers that if "any envelope without complete or missing information ... either for the sender or the offender will be rejected and discarded UNOPENED without exception." TextBehind will not return the mail to the sender or notify either party that their mail has been discarded. These unfair stipulations act as a deterrent for sending physical mail and advance an attempt to portray their for-profit electronic services as the only surefire way to make sure mail arrives at its destination.
According to TextBehind's terms and conditions, "TextBehind Service will never share any ... personal data including email address, phone number, name, addresses, inmate information, communication, photos, and financial transactions with any third parties unless otherwise required by law." But in an article written by Brian Rosenzweig in The Daily Tarheel, Chris Reilly, a spokesperson for TextBehind, stated that "prisons ... have access to digital archives of all mail sent for up to seven years ... without the need for warrants or special permissions." Reilly added that the ability to store personal information "is highly appreciated by the prison administrators, because ... they can always go back and find that mail almost instantaneously." Personal information may not be shared with third parties, but prison employees across North Carolina will have wide access to a civilian's vital information, even after the prisoner they contacted is released.
It is unclear whether the seven-year policy applies to just electronic mail sent via a personal account or also physical mail sent to the post office box. This ambiguity may present a legal problem for TextBehind. If a person chooses to create an account, they must agree to TextBehind's terms and conditions. Such an agreement authorizes TextBehind to legally retain personal information. Contrariwise, storage of scanned, physical mail on TextBehind servers may be unlawful if a person sends a letter to the physical address and TextBehind retains their personal information without notification. People who have not signed TextBehind's terms and conditions cannot be held to the same legal standard as someone who has. As it stands, North Carolina has made sending mail to TextBehind a requirement for anyone contacting prisoners, subjecting their personal information for storage without permission or notification.
People sending mail to TextBehind may also have reason to worry about their personal information falling into the hands of predators. Mailroom workers in prisons are vetted for employment as any potential law enforcement officer would be. Employers perform background checks, mental health evaluations, and academic aptitude testing. No one knows who TextBehind hires to process mail containing vital information that a criminal could use to harm an unsuspecting victim. Incarcerated parents receive their children's report cards detailing a child's name, grade level, and school address. Girlfriends send private information regarding plans for vacations, allowing a potential criminal to know when a home will be unoccupied. Personal mail to prisoners holds a wealth of information that criminals can use to commit crimes against children or women who desire to communicate with their incarcerated loved one, and no link will exist between victim and perpetrator.
Lastly, the implementation of the TextBehind policy leaves a legal void that prevents prisoners from accessing the courts. TextBehind will not process legal mail protected by an attorney-client privilege; however, North Carolina has not created exceptions to cover services TextBehind does not provide. For instance, North Carolina does not allow prisoners access to a law library. Currently, in order to procure legal materials necessary for filing a pro se collateral appeal, prisoners must have friends search for case law or statutes online, then send them to the prison through personal mail. Many courts require multiple copies of briefs, but North Carolina policy prohibits prisoners access to photocopiers. Prisoners must also send evidentiary documents home for copying, then have them sent back in to be submitted to the courts with their briefs. TextBehind does not process legal mail, and North Carolina no longer accepts personal mail at prisons. This occurrence prevents prisoners from obtaining legal documents and copies that we have always been forced to receive from home, effectually obstructing us from filing pro se claims challenging our criminal convictions.
Unwarranted Reasons for Change
Prison officials cite the introduction of drugs into institutions as the catalyst for the for-profit contract with TextBehind, but those claims remain unsubstantiated. Scientific advances make smuggling drugs into prisons easier than in the past when bulky packages of marijuana (a plant) or cocaine (a powder) could be detected without much effort by staff. Now, synthetic drugs commandeer the drug market in prisons, mainly suboxone (synthetic heroin) and K2 (synthetic marijuana). K2 is introduced as liquid or sprayed on paper for smoking. Suboxone comes in a pad form that can be cut into small strips and dissolved with saliva for ingestion. In the Rosenzweig article, North Carolina prison officials blame half of synthetic drugs in prisons on mail sent through the United States Postal Service (USPS). Using TextBehind is the NCDPS' solution to combat the presence of these drugs in prisons.
North Carolina began using TextBehind as a mail provider in the state's female prisons about two years ago. At the time, there was no public outcry that such a system may be unfair. In fact, most people never knew it was happening. The NCDPS claims to have found a higher percentage of women prisoners who were given infractions for failing urinalysis tests or having drugs sent to them on pictures drawn with crayons. This phenomenon supposedly motivated North Carolina's trial run of TextBehind.
Women account for approximately 2,000 of North Carolina's prison population, compared to 30,000 plus men. Logistically, it proves easier to implement TextBehind on a smaller scale, but personally, I believe the decision to begin with women's prisons presented a sexist disadvantage for them. We are all incarcerated under the same horrid conditions, despite gender. The NCDPS massaged statistics to claim drug infraction rates in female prisons were worse, but honestly, there was no real way to tell whether male or female prisoners posited a worse drug problem or why. A percentage of infraction rates may have appeared higher simply because there are less women than men, making the ratio vary.
How many drugs enter prisons cannot be accurately calculated. In Rosenzweig's article, prison officials claim the amount of drugs introduced into women's prisons declined by "50 percent" once they began using TextBehind. That is an impossible finding. For one, there is no way to know how many drugs enter a prison. Officials can only determine how many drugs are confiscated. Many variables contribute to confiscation. How many searches have officers conducted? Have culprits found better ways to conceal illegal drugs? A finding about the declination of drugs in a prison cannot indicate how they were smuggled in or be used to prove that women consume more drugs.
Moreover, if 50 percent of drugs were introduced through the mail — as the NCDPS claims — where did the other 50 percent come from? That question is one the NCDPS has always refused to answer, and with good reason. The other 50 percent arrives with prison staff.
Over the years, I have read many articles where prison officials unfairly blame the introduction of drugs on personal visitors coming to see incarcerated family members. While this occurs, personal visits cannot be the sole cause of drugs in prison. Staff members enter prisons every day and posit inside knowledge on how to circumvent security measures. Prison officials rarely credit correctional officers with drug smuggling, because those officials would have to wear the blame for failing to stop it. It is far easier to blame the families of prisoners.
In a recent article published by Prison Legal News, Kevin Bliss reports on how the Virginia DOC confirms that visitation is not a primary means of the introduction of contraband in its prisons. Before arriving at this conclusion, Virginia prison officials stripped prisoners and made them change into fresh clothes before and after a visit, prohibited female visitors from wearing "tampons to visitation when menstruating," and strip searched minors. Yet, during the VDOC's COVID-19 lockdown, when in-person visits were canceled, "positive drug tests increased 0.4%" at a time when the VDOC's prison population fell by 20%. "Retired and active VDOC guards" credit "low pay, low morale, and lax security" as contributions for "staff smuggling drugs into the institution." It is no different in North Carolina. In 2019, the North Carolina Commissioner of prisons presented lawmakers with a staff vacancy report citing low pay ($36,990), mandatory overtime, and a lack of well-trained supervisors as reasons for vacancies, yet it could be argued that the same factors contribute to introduction of contraband by disgruntled staff.
Correspondingly, every prison in North Carolina experienced a lockdown caused by the COVID-19 pandemic during 2020. In-person visits were cancelled for the entire year and much of 2021. At Nash, where I am housed, most units were on a complete lockdown, with each cellblock isolated from others. It was during this time that I saw drug usage at its worse, when prisoners experienced despair caused by prolonged isolation and restricted movement. Yet at that time, no drugs could have entered through visitation, only through correctional officers, but that fact remains overshadowed by prison officials. Since visits were canceled, and drug usage persists, prison officials now blame the USPS mail and employ it as a thin scapegoat to enter a for-profit contract with TextBehind.
North Carolina Makes Prisons Profitable
North Carolina's TextBehind mail policy cannot rid prisons of drugs. Drugs entered institutions long before they blamed it on the mail, and they will continue entering even if prison officials outlaw mail altogether. The switch to TextBehind is a monopolizing business venture. Prisoners can only communicate with friends and family through telephone calls, digital messaging on a tablet, and mail. Each of these services cost something, and by forcing families to use predatory service providers without meaningful competition, North Carolina capitalizes on guaranteed revenue for the state. To communicate with prisoners, civilians are forced to pay outrageous fees for the following services:
Global Tel Link (GTL) telephone calls: $0.12 a minute, or $1.80 for fifteen minutes.
GTL tablet messenger: $.03 a minute for prisoners; families pay $.25 per message.
TextBehind: $1.29 to send a 5,000-character letter electronically.
These services render a percentage of proceeds to the prison system. In most cases, prisons reap a 20% kickback on each singular transaction. The state also charges for other services from which it receives a kickback:
Union Supply: Quarterly food packages. $100 limit.
JPAY banking service: $4. 95 to transfer $20 to a prisoner's commissary account.
Over the course of two decades, prison systems have monopolized predatory business ventures stemming from incarceration. This new TextBehind mail policy is just another way to generate money and make people pay prisons directly for communication with prisoners because families cannot contact prisoners any other way. Prison officials know these endeavors are predatory, but they enter vulturine contracts anyway.
Monetizing familial contact between prisoners and loved ones can have detrimental repercussions. African American prisoners make up 60 percent of prisoners in North Carolina, and many originate from impoverished communities. By entering prison, they leave behind a void of income that a single parent must make up. Single parents may not have money to spend on phone calls, to send tablet messages, to drive for a visit, or now, to send a letter for $1.29 when the rest of the country can pay $0.58 for a stamp. Sparse contact with family impacts a prisoner's rehabilitation and behavior because loneliness promotes hopelessness. Hopelessness leads to depression, which can contribute to violence or worse, suicide. Moreover, the family bond between an incarcerated parent and their child will be forever damaged.
That the new TextBehind policy is a concern for the mental well-being of prisoners seems no problem for prison officials. In the Rosenzweig article, NCDPS communications officer Brad Deen states, “We realize how important contact with people on the outside is, and how a sense of alienation from the world beyond prison can complicate our mission to prepare offenders for a successful reintegration into the larger society,'' but "ultimately, we decided that the more immediate safety and security threats from smuggled contraband outweigh other concerns." The outweighed concerns are the peace and sanity of prisoners derived from continued communication with loved ones.
A Baseless Argument
It is clear that the NCDPS claims using Textbehind will limit the amount of drugs coming in by outlawing personal mail, but prisons actually focus on monetary gain instead. At Nash, prisoners are allowed to receive books and magazines from Amazon, instead of home, because Amazon is a third-party vendor and no drugs could possibly be smuggled in through such a retailer. Inversely, we are no longer allowed to receive photos that our families upload for printing and delivery by Amazon. Books and photos printed by Amazon are processed in the same distribution hub, but photos are no longer allowed, while books are. Prisoner Robert Manning III used to receive photos from Amazon every week, but since the implementation ofTextBehind, he refuses to ask his family to pay $1.29 for photos that are printed on computer paper when Amazon photos cost only $0.04 per photo. The value doesn't add up. Additionally, TextBehind will not allow photos to be uploaded from iPhone or Android cloud servers, which increases time and inconvenience to send them through TextBehind. When I asked Manning how he felt about the prison's new photo policy, he stated, "By forcing families to send pictures through TextBehind, Nash Correctional Institution ensures that TextBehind makes money to be shared with the state, which seems to be the only motivation for North Carolina's switch in the first place." The introduction of drugs provides the NCDPS with a convenient excuse to seek profit, nothing more.
Conclusion
I have never earned an infraction for using or possessing drugs in prison, and I never will. Yet, I am punished by the new Textbehind policy because other people choose to use drugs, and the prison system refuses to hold their staff accountable — either the staff that brings in drugs, or staff that is too incompetent to search for drugs.
I am serving life without parole. I will never sit at a dinner table with my loved ones again. Segregation from society is my punishment. Why should my loved ones be punished too by having to pay the prison to communicate with me? If North Carolina wants to use TextBehind, it should be an option, not the rule. Because of this new policy, my loved ones are afraid to subject their personal information to a third-party vendor they do not trust, and they should not have to.
As a result, I will never again receive a postcard from Sandy with a corny pun scribbled in her shaky handwriting on the back. I will never receive a picture of Faye's daughters graduating from high school. I will never receive another newspaper article from Jack. I will never hold another letter written by a loved one and lose myself in nostalgic memories spawned by the way the paper smells and feels. I may never hear from my friends and family again.
Sources
Anonymous. 2019. "North Carolina's Prison Crisis Needs Drastic Change." News and Observer. October 28.
Bliss, Kevin. 2021. "Virginia Department of Corrections Confirms Visitation Not Primary Means of Contraband Introduction." In Prison Legal News (Lake Worth Beach, FL: Human Rights Defense Center, October), 42-43.
Rosenzweig, Brian. 2021. "New Mailing Policy for Incarcerated Individuals Raises Privacy, Mental Health Concerns." In The Daily Tarheel. November 15.
TextBehind Service Delivery Terms. 2021. Accessed from www.Textbehind.com.
TextBehind. 2021. "Connecting Relationships." Brochure.
