By Alex Gault
Watertown Daily Times, N.Y.
ALBANY, N.Y. — Assemblyman Scott A. Gray and state Sen. Daniel G. Stec are backing a bill that would eliminate the last of the paper mail delivered to people incarcerated in state prisons by digitizing all legal mail delivered to them.
This week, Gray, R- Watertown, and Stec, R- Queensbury, introduced bills in the Assembly and Senate to require the state Department of Corrections and Community Supervision to create a secure digital method for delivery of legal mail. The law prescribes a system that has law offices register with the department and gain access to a secure platform where documents are uploaded and shared with the incarcerated person.
The system would rely on the tablets some people in prison already have, maintained by the prison services company JPay, or on computer stations available in prison law libraries.
Gray, in a press release on Thursday, said the move would help modernize prison practices and cut down on the risk of contraband smuggling he says is encouraged by the current system.
“This legislation takes advantage of technology already available within our facilities to ensure legal correspondence remains secure, while removing a dangerous avenue for drugs and contraband,” he said. “It is a practical step forward to safeguard both staff and incarcerated individuals.”
In response to security staff concerns and issues raised over the unsanctioned officers strike that happened earlier this year, state prisons officials have implemented a new scanning system for legal mail delivered to the prisons, relying on the MailSecur system from RaySecur. A multi-million dollar contract to install and maintain scanning machines in all 42 state prisons was agreed to, and the machines have been rolled out to facilities over the months as the company makes them.
According to the product webpage, the MailSecur system uses “mmWave” technology to scan packages without opening them and can detect liquids, powders and traditional threat items. The company says its technology is widely used by corporate and government clients, and meets Department of Homeland Security standards.
Officials have aimed to use this technology to reduce the smuggling of illicit substances into facilities. In the past, people have tried to exploit the legal mail loophole in state law to hide illegal substances in mail in an attempt to smuggle it into prison.
In some facilities, physical non-legal mail is scanned and digitized, but in cases where that’s not possible, mailroom staff photocopy letters and other correspondence and dispose of the original. Some non-legal mail items are sent through the RaySecur machines as well.
But state law requires that legal mail be delivered to the incarcerated person without being reviewed by mail staff except for contraband. Mail to be opened must be opened in the presence of the person it’s addressed to, and prison staff can’t read the words on the page.
Sen. Stec, who introduced the bill on Wednesday in his chamber, has pointed to instances of alleged drug exposures in prisons in his own district as evidence the legal mail process isn’t secure enough. Under the current system, synthetic drugs are traveling into correctional facilities through constitutionally protected legal mail, according to Stec, and paper soaked in chemicals or synthetic drugs could bypass mail scanners and make their way into prisons.
At Upstate Correctional Facility in Malone, seven staff went to the hospital after coming into contact with an inmate during a medical emergency on Aug. 24, according to James Miller, a spokesperson for the New York State Correctional Officers and Police Benevolent Association.
On Aug. 8, 13 staff members from Upstate Correctional were taken to a local hospital after becoming ill, according to an email from Thomas Mailey, director of public information for DOCCS.
A corrections officer, in a cell with a maintenance employee, was the first to begin feeling sick, according to Mailey. The officer was taken to the medical unit, where others who came in contact with them also reported feeling unwell.
The maintenance staff member did not exhibit any symptoms and remained on duty, according to Mailey, and all 13 staff were later released from the hospital.
Earlier this year, similar incidents resulting in hospitalizations were reported at other state prisons in Malone.
At the beginning of August, six corrections officers and a nurse at Dannemora Correctional Facility were transported to the hospital for medical care after an unknown exposure at the prison, according to an email from Stec’s office. That came after a report that there had been 80 chemical exposures at Clinton Correctional in the past month.
“If we’re going to take prison safety seriously, this measure, along with my secure vendor legislation and mandatory body scanner use bill, would stem the epidemic of chemical and synthetic drug exposures plaguing correctional facilities,” Stec said in Wednesday’s press release.
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