WA Prisons Install Inmate Email Kiosks
One of the many freedoms you lose when you go to jail is access to the internet. But now, some Washington state prison inmates are getting email. Kiosks have been installed at Stafford Creek, Coyote Ridge and Airway Heights Corrections Centers. EMessaging should be available at all Washington DOC facilities by the end of the year. Reported by NPR.
Dozens of email kiosks have been installed in three large prisons and the technology is scheduled to go statewide in Washington by the end of the year. Prisons director Dan Pacholke says electronic mail reduces smuggling threats and costs less to process and read than paper mail. The email software automatically flags danger words like “escape” or “weapon.”
Dan Pacholke: “I would say that e-mail is more secure in the sense that we can translate it from a foreign language to English. You can read the handwriting. It doesn’t lend itself to encryption. You can’t use meth soaked paper. You can’t put white powder in the envelope.”
Washington’s Department of Corrections is the first in the Northwest to install pay per e-mail kiosks. Meanwhile, letter writing is going out of style at dozens of county jails across the Northwest too. But there’s no high tech replacement. Those jails introduced a postcards-only rule to speed up mail screening and to inhibit smuggling. I’m Tom Banse in Olympia.
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