Some states’ departments of corrections are outsourcing to private companies their decision-making about who can and who cannot communicate with people in their prisons. These decisions cut families and loved ones off, sometimes permanently.
The Washington State Department of Corrections (DOC) has said it does not maintain any records of who has been blocked from communications with people incarcerated in the state. According to the department, these lists are maintained by the private company Securus, which manages phone, e-messaging and video calls for the state.
In a denial of an open records request submitted by Truthout, the department said: “The records you request from the Securus messaging system are not public records, created, used or maintained by the department and; therefore, are not disclosable under the Public Records Act, RCW 42.56. You may submit your request directly to Securus.” Neither Securus nor its parent company Aventiv responded to any requests from Truthout for further information.
As a private company, Securus is not subject to open records laws in Washington State or anywhere else in the U.S. Prisons are public agencies, and increasing privatization of communications options has contributed to decreased transparency.
Communication in Prison Is Tightly Restricted
People in prison exist in a state of highly restricted communication with the outside world. They cannot have cellphones or access the internet. They can place outgoing phone calls but cannot receive calls, and they can exchange e-messages accessed at a kiosk or on an individual tablet. Unlike email, each of these messages costs money to send and they require both parties to have an account with the messaging service.
Phone and messaging services in prisons across the country are managed by private companies like Aventiv and Global Tel Link. These companies charge people in prison and their loved ones up to 50 cents per message for their services. Out of these fees, they also often offer a commission back to the prison itself, creating a system in which both the state and the private company make money off some of the poorest people in the U.S.
The same companies provide video call services (also for a fee), which in many facilities have been allowed to replace in-person visitation. Increasingly, the ability to receive snail mail from loved ones has been restricted as well; since 2017, at least 16 states and the Federal Bureau of Prisons have moved to scanning all incoming mail and providing recipients with the electronic scan in lieu of the original paper. People in prison have spoken extensively about how they are harmed by this practice, which eliminates the smells and physical traces of their loved ones from letters and replaces it with a sometimes inadequate scan. Mail scanning creates a massive surveillance database, with few companies offering clarity on what happens to the private data collected or how long it is retained.
In all forms of communication, prison staff insist they “have to know who’s on the other end,” Jim Kopriva, spokesperson for the Washington Department of Corrections, told Truthout. From the prison’s perspective, such monitoring is critical to catching and squashing criminal enterprises that are conducted from within the prison walls. This is why most prisons have strict rules prohibiting any third-party contact, meaning relaying a message to or from another person who is not directly on the phone, message or visit.
Private Companies Take It Upon Themselves to Block Consumers
Knowing who is “on the other end” means the prison also maintains control over who can (and cannot) communicate with people in prison. Certain people outside the prison are blocked from communicating directly, as a result of rule violations, court orders and sometimes even administrative mistakes.
Without notification from the prison about what rules have been violated and what remedies are available, people can find themselves permanently blocked from contact with a loved one behind bars.
Take third-party contact: Since incarceration disproportionately impacts Black and poor communities, it is likely that many people know more than one person in prison. Prison rules in Washington (DOC policy 200.00) dictate that outside supporters can only deposit money to one account, punishing those with more than one loved one inside. The rule forces people to choose who they can support or risk running afoul of the rules and being blocked altogether.
Similarly, nonprofits and advocates who communicate with large rosters of people in prison, often sharing vital information or doing essential newsgathering, are open to being blocked altogether if prison officials decide that their activities constitute third-party contact.
The privatization of communications increases the risk of people being blocked with very little oversight. These companies directly advertise a set of automated tools to more effectively surveil and control communications. The contract between Securus and the Washington Department of Corrections, for example, says Securus offers software benefits such as the Threads application which “allows authorized users to analyze corrections and communications data to generate targeted investigative leads,” and the “Investigator Pro” application which “help[s] investigators find correlations among calls.”
One prison staffer familiar with mail review procedures told Truthout that a lot of communication bans come “from the company itself doing it instead of the facility doing it…. Most people that were restricted come down to the company JPay actually restricting them.”
The staff member, who spoke anonymously in order to protect their job, added that as a corrections officer reviewing e-messages, “I couldn’t even see who was restricted and who wasn’t restricted.”
People Are Barred From Communication Without Any Information About Why
The process that occurs when someone is blocked is opaque. People on the outside are not always notified by the DOC when there is a problem, and there is no clear appeal process for those not within the system. Emails obtained by Truthout show officials at the Washington DOC acknowledging that the gap in their notification process is a problem, but Kopriva said he was not aware of any updated processes.
Without notification, people on the outside find that their messaging accounts just suddenly stop working. Answers from Aventiv, the parent company of both JPay and Securus, are very hard to come by. Typical of corporate helpdesks, these companies offer generic email addresses and 1-800 numbers for customers with any issue, including being blocked. Most responses are automated, and human assistance is tricky to obtain. In this author’s experience, for example, the only way to be directed to a live person on the JPay helpline appeared to be pressing buttons on the automated phone tree for at least three minutes.
Without notification from the prison about what rules have been violated and what remedies are available, people can find themselves permanently blocked from contact with a loved one behind bars. The ability to communicate with loved ones, whether birth family or otherwise, has critical mental health impacts for those in prison and can even decrease violence within the prison. Permanently blocking contact with someone in the outside world can be extremely damaging, yet prisons are allowing private companies to do just that.
Prisons Blame Drugs for Restrictions, But Prisons Do Little Else to Prevent Drug Abuse
Kopriva says the Washington Department of Corrections does everything it can to promote a “core mission of rehabilitation,” and that “includes contact with the outside world and loved ones and support networks.” This must be balanced, he told Truthout, with “interrupting negative behavior,” and particularly reducing drug trafficking in the prison.
Kopriva says drug-running is the main reason that people who want to be in touch are blocked, citing specifically the skyrocketing rate of overdoses as a main concern. But others argue that there are many other actions the department could take to more effectively curb overdoses and drug use inside.
A recent piece in the Prison Journalism Project describes addiction treatment in Washington State prisons as “scarce and confusing.” Treatment programs that are advertised are often hard to access in practice, with extremely limited availability. Another prison journalist, writing for Filter magazine, reported on the repeated failure of guards in his Washington State prison to use Narcan to reverse overdoses. The failures were due to a false belief that Narcan is not effective in the case of a fentanyl overdose (it is), lack of Narcan availability and a general hesitancy on the part of guards to administer the drug themselves.
In his discussion with Truthout, Kopriva highlighted Suboxone abuse as a major problem in prison. This is itself a demonstration of the prison’s focus on control rather than safety and well-being: Suboxone is the prescription medication used to treat opioid addiction. It does not lead to overdoses, because it contains naloxone (Narcan) within it.
Prison staff have a long history of overstating the benefits of mail scanning and other severe limitations to communication while providing little evidence of their success. A Prison Policy Initiative report shows that there is no solid evidence that mail scanning limits the flow of drugs or decreases the risks of overdose. Meanwhile, addiction treatment beyond peer-support groups in prisons is exceedingly scarce across the United States.
As with book-banning, drugs are a justification that can be used to paper over communication bans issued for all kinds of reasons. Outsourcing these decisions to private companies eliminates the transparency and public accountability that can limit prisons from targeting activists and outspoken family members, or engaging in other forms of retaliation.
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