Prison Mail Policy Changes Reduce Family Connections

It is undisputed that maintaining healthy, positive connections with family and friends is an important element to reducing prisoner re-offense rates. Studies have shown that these strong family and community relationships are essential to lowering an offender's risk of re-offending. Nevertheless, the Michigan Department of Corrections (MDOC) has enacted policies over the last decade or so that have limited the fostering and maintenance of these healthy relationships. A few years ago the MDOC reduced visiting days to five days a week, eliminating two visiting days. This increased the number of visitors on the available days, meaning that more and more visits are terminated after an hour because of the unavailability of seating in visiting rooms. Additionally, some prisons further limited visiting opportunities by eliminating morning visits, and restricting which days prisoners may receive visits according to their prison number. Now, the MDOC has changed mail rules, adding burdensome restrictions to the mail prisoners may receive. Some of the recent changes to the MDOC mail policy (P.D. 05.03.118) include: * All mail must be in blue or black ink, or graphite, including no colored printing. * No adhesives at all, including glue, stamps, return address labels, whiteout, and stickers. * No non-white or heavy weight paper (including construction paper). * No security envelopes. * No references to other Michigan prisoners, including in newspaper articles. These new restrictions mean fathers cannot receive drawings, or colorings from their children unless they are on plain, white paper and done with blue or black ink or graphite pencil. God-forbid should a father receive any coloring from his child. Additionally, prison mail rooms are transferring all prisoner mail to MDOC supplied envelopes before they are sent to the prisoner, meaning prisoners do not have return addresses unless they are written on the letter by the sender. Original envelopes are destroyed without notice to the prisoner. This limits the prisoners' ability to respond to those who send them mail. Some applications of these restrictions are also limiting prisoners' access to religious and rehabilitative material. The huge added cost to the MDOC budget from supplying new envelopes for every piece of prisoner mail, and the added cost of overtime for the mail room staff who are overwhelmed by these new rules, ought to be a significant concern to taxpayers and lawmakers who want to lower the already burgeoning $2+ billion corrections budget in Michigan. Budget concerns notwithstanding, Michigan residents ought to also be concerned about these new excessive MDOC rules, excused by the department as "security measures," because they limit prisoners' rehabilitative options and connections to family and friends. Michigan voters need to voice their opposition to these policies and encourage legislation and MDOC policies that foster rehabilitation, reintegration, and restoration. Please call or email your lawmakers today to urge a fix to this problem.