A Dane County Sheriff's Office proposal to end county jail inmates' access to physical copies of their mail has come under fire from community advocates and members of a County Board committee.
Eight community members spoke at a recent meeting of the Public Protection and Judiciary Committee, opposing a proposed contract with Smart Communications, a company that provides communication services for residents in jail including SMS messages, emails and video calls. The proposal includes the adoption of mail scanning, in which physical mail is diverted to an outside location, scanned and sent to inmates via tablets.
Prisons and jails around the country are adopting mail scanning, including Wisconsin’s Department of Corrections, saying it prevents drugs and other contraband from entering their facilities. Dane County Sheriff’s Office staff make the same case.
Currently, physical mail is delivered to the Dane County Jail and given to residents if it adheres to the facility’s mail regulations. If the mail contains an unacceptable item such as glitter, stickers or crayon materials, the recipient is given a photocopy of the mail.
In response to an email, Sheriff’s Office spokesperson Elise Schaffer wrote that mail scanning “has value because it provides an extra layer of safety for the residents and our staff,” and during the committee meeting, Sheriff’s Capt. Jan Tetzlaff said a review going back to 2021 showed “some cases where we have definitively identified drugs in the jail that appear to have come from a mail source.”
But critics question whether mail scanning actually solves the problems of contraband and drug use. A Prison Policy Initiative report, for example, highlighted several state prison systems where drug use and overdose rates increased after switching to mail scanning.
And then there’s the effect on inmates. Both community and committee members at the meeting called mail scanning practices alienating, dehumanizing and impractical.
“Mail scanning programs deprive people of a physical connection to the outside world,” community member Jane Ellmann said. “Think about the last time that you received a card in the mail, maybe a postcard from a friend traveling abroad, or Christmas cards from a family member. Can you honestly say that it would have been just as meaningful if it was a text message or an email instead?”
Communications costs
If adopted, the contract with Smart would replace an existing contract with a similar company, ViaPath Technologies (formerly known as Global Tel Link or GTL), which expires on Nov. 1. Smart offers lower SMS messaging and phone rates to residents.
Residents are currently charged 7 cents per minute for phone calls and 25 cents for SMS messaging, and under the proposed contract, residents would be charged 10 cents for a shorter SMS message, 50 cents per email, 3 cents per minute for phone calls and 12 cents per minute for video calls. Emails are currently not available to county jail inmates.
However, community members say any cost is dehumanizing and creates financial barriers to maintaining contact with loved ones.
“Families, especially low-income families, may be forced to choose which moments in the life of the kids their parents can be part of,” Cait Mallery said. “I ask that the committee aggressively pursue lower- or no-cost options for communication platforms and vote against the contract.”
It’s not yet clear what the committee and the County Board will decide, but there was skepticism on display at the committee meeting.
County Board Supervisor David Peterson of Cottage Grove said he felt “sick all day,” after researching Smart, whose CEO, Jonathan Logan, is known for an extravagant lifestyle financed by inmate communications. He owns a Lamborghini with a licence plate reading INMATE and a yacht named “Convict,” for example.
“This should not be a profit thing for anybody involved,” said County Board Supervisor Keith Furman, whose district is in west Madison. “Communication is incredibly important for jail residents. Nobody should be making money off of this.”
Community and committee members asked if it is possible to provide communication services to residents in jail without using a for-profit company. Tetzlaff said going a route other than with the companies that submitted proposals wasn't discussed while developing the proposed service.
Two companies submitted bids, the other being ViaPath, the company that currently has a contract with the county. The two proposals were evaluated and scored by Dane County Purchasing. Smart received a higher score.
Smart's bid wouldn't charge any money to Dane County itself. In fact, the county would be paid an administration fee to cover the costs of staff time to implement the new system. Committee members said the proposed contract with Smart is similar to the current one with ViaPath.
Other possibilities discussed included extending the current ViaPath contract or eliminating the mail scanning portion of the contract with Smart, which Tetzlaff said could be an option.
There was some discussion about recommending a rejection of the Smart bid, but ultimately, the committee passed a motion to postpone a vote until its July 22 meeting.