The Tarrant County Jail has moved its mail service to a digital-only platform to limit contraband, but advocates for incarcerated people say it will only make people feel more isolated while in jail custody.
Under the new system, all mail except legal documents will be received digitally through MailGuard, a Smart Communications service.
People in jail custody will be able to check their digital mail at any time and there is no charge for the service, according to an email from Robbie Hoy, Tarrant County Sheriff's Office public information officer. Regular mail — like letters, postcards, greeting cards, and photos — will be scanned into a system that can be accessed from smart tablets inside the jail.
But communication with loved ones while in custody could either make or break a person's emotional stability, according to Marci Marie Simmons, spokesperson with Lioness: Justice Impacted Women's Alliance.
Lioness is an organization led by currently and formerly incarcerated women in Texas that aims to end a "systemic devaluing" within the state's criminal justice system.
An outlined hand drawing from children or mail that smells like a family member are ways that people in-custody can connect to their loved ones, Simmons said.
"I remember smelling a piece of mail and smelling my grandmother's hand lotion on it and feeling attached to my family," Simmons said about her time incarcerated. "And that's something that's being lost with with this digital live mail program."
In a statement, Waybourn said limiting the items coming into the jail would add to the safety of inmates and staff.
“The MailGuard system is a quick and efficient way for inmates to receives photos and letters electronically and will streamline operations within the jail,” he added.
Advocacy groups have sounded the alarm on the digital mail system for years and say it causes more harm than good.
In a 2021 letter addressed to U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland, around 50 organizations and advocacy groups demanded the end of the federal Bureau of Prisons program that piloted Smart Communications' MailGuard system.
"The program has a negligible impact on safety — but has devastating consequences to incarcerated people, severely affecting their emotional well-being, weakening family ties, and hindering their ease of reentry upon release," the groups said in the letter.
A report by Vice also found that Smart Communications kept track of who sends messages, including email addresses, physical addresses and phone numbers.
Because they receive the mail sent to people in jails and prisons, Jon Logan, Smart Communications CEO, told KERA information put on an envelope will automatically be uploaded into the system. Then, he said, it becomes the law enforcement agency's data.
"That is their information that they have access to and that they will retain for their records," he said.
Logan also said that Smart Communications is providing the Tarrant County Sheriff's Office with a comprehensive suite of communication tools which includes phone and video calls. The phone call service has an option to record calls at an agency's discretion, Logan said.
The sheriff's office declined to comment on whether they record phone calls or not.
The Tarrant County Sheriff's Office is not the first law enforcement agency to make the move to digital-only mail.
Last year, the Texas Department of Criminal Justice announced it would move to a digital mailing platform to "reduce the amount of dangerous contraband" in its facilities.
The Harris County Jail in Houston also made the switch to electronic mail in July 2023.
However, reporting by the Texas Tribune and the Marshall Project — a nonprofit that covers the criminal justice system — found that contraband in Texas prisons is most often brought in by staff.
Illegal contraband inside of jails and prisons is a big business, Simmons said. It often involves incarcerated or in-custody people soliciting staff members to bring items in so they can distribute inside the facility.
In Tarrant County, a lawsuit filed earlier this year alleged the county fails to effectively prevent drugs from reaching people in its jails.
The federal lawsuit was filed July 19 by Cassandra Johnson, the mother of Trelynn Wormley. Wormley, 23, died in the Tarrant County jail on July 20, 2022 due to a fentanyl overdose.
The suit came after months of scrutiny and calls for accountability in the Tarrant County Sheriff's Office following at least seven in-custody deaths this year.
The Sheriff's Office has made some moves toward accountability.
In September, Tarrant County commissioners approved plans for the sheriff's office to pursue a third-party comprehensive review of its policies. The policy review comes months after a KERA report found the sheriff's office policies had not been updated in more than a decade.
Mail to people in Tarrant County Jail custody should now be sent to:
Smart Communications / Tarrant Co Jail
First and Last Name #Inmate number
PO Box 9195
Seminole, FL 33775-9137
Got a tip? Email Megan Cardona at mcardona@kera.org.
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