November
9, 2010
Column
50
In
#49, I said in the future I wanted to talk about problems with our mail
and
visits, so I will talk about the mail this time. Mail is the only way
many of
us have to maintain a relationship with our families, friends and loved
ones, while
in prison " I am not talking about just prisoners on death row. Mail is
the main source of communication with the outside world for everyone in
prison.
The only exception is for those who are able to telephone someone who
is able
to afford the inflated telephone charges for prison calls.
In
the last few years there have been increasing problems with our mail.
Not just
the incoming mail, which has always been slow to be processed and given
to us.
Lately there have been problems with the letters we are mailing out as
well.
There are many instances where letters mailed from here will sit in the
prison
for a week, or more, before it is finally sent to the post office. If
you have
a child, wife or loved one, who has a birthday coming up, you have to
try and
guess at bow long it will take for your birthday card to be put in the
mail. I
have heard of many cases where birthday cards, sent from here, have
arrived
weeks late even though they had been mailed in plenty of time.
As
for the incoming mail, we are supposed to receive our letters within 7
working
days, but it often takes weeks and sometimes months, for the prison to
give us
our mail.
The
most disturbing thing with our mail is how often our mail seems to just
disappear. I've had people write to me, who I hadn't heard from in
ages. They
say they had written before, but never heard back from me. In many
cases, they
never received a letter I had sent to them. If it was only a few times
that
this happened, I would consider it just bad luck, but it happens
regularly.
This isn't something that happens just to me either. I have heard many
others
complain about this happening.
There
doesn't seem to be any real way to keep track of the mail and I have no
idea
what happens to the mail that disappears. I do know it is a criminal offense to tamper with the mail in any way. I
don't know if that is true with prison mail, but I would assume once
you put a
postage stamp on a letter, it would be a crime to tamper with that
letter in
any way.
Over
the last couple of decades mail has changed considerably. The postal
service
doesn't process many letters now, compared to 20 years ago. Most people
use
electronic mail these days. I have heard talk about the postal service
discontinuing letter delivery altogether, one day. I have no way of
knowing if
this is true, but I wouldn't be surprised if eventually that did happen.
If
mail does become obsolete then it would be logical to assume prisons
would have
to switch to some form of electronic mail. With technology being what
it is
these clays, I would think prisons would be doing all they could to
switch to
electronic mail as soon as possible. It would be faster and cheaper, as
well as
more secure. You can’t smuggle anything into a prison via electronic
mail. It
would be much easier for the prison to monitor outgoing and incoming
mail with
electronic mail as well.
E-mail
is a thing of the future prisons though. Prisons never make changes
like that
until they have no other options for the most part. In the present time
our
mail is always hit or miss. For those of you who write to someone in
prison and
you don't hear back from them, you should write a note to inquire if
they
stopped writing. There is a good chance they never got your letter, or
you
didn't get a letter they sent to you.
I
am out of here for this one. Feel free to write me via the website or
by regular mail. I will always reply. All my best to you and thanks for
taking the time to read this.
Best
wishes.
Dean Carter
p.o.
box
C-97919
San
Quentin Prison
San Quentin, California 94974
