Some Illinois county jails are switching to digital mail to prevent contraband issues

WAYNE COUNTY, Ill. (KBSI) – Wayne County Jail is delivering detainees’ mail through tablets and kiosks instead of paper mail. The transition to scanning mail and digitally providing it to inmates began Monday, December 2, 2024.

With increasing concerns about drugs entering Illinois correctional facilities through the mail and reports of IDOC workers experiencing drug overdose symptoms in the facilities, Wayne County Sheriff’s Office transitioned to a mail scanning program this month.

Jail administrator Mike Miller said they haven’t had recent problems with contraband entering their facility but he saw it happen early on in his career and he wants to prevent it from happening again.

“They would soak letters or portions of letters, you know, containing a substance — containing a contraband,” Miller said. “And then, it would test positive for methamphetamine or something like that.”

Miller said the change is not meant as a punishment to the inmates; it’s for the health and safety of workers and people detained there.

“It’s for their protection, too,” he said. “We work with people who are essentially our neighbors here. Everybody that is in custody of the Wayne County Jail right now, was arrested in Wayne County.”

The transition to mail scanning was made possible through a partnership with the company TextBehind, at no additional cost to the county.

Family and friends send non-legal paper mail to TextBehind in Kentucky where it is scanned and made digitally available to inmates. The standard guidelines regarding what can be sent to inmates remains the same.

Legal mail should continue being sent directly to the jail.

People detained at the jail can access their mail through in-cell kiosks. They log in using their inmate ID and password. Once they’re in, they can see their mail and they can also see receipts showing mail that was redacted because it didn’t meet the standard guidelines.

If a person wants more privacy to view their mail, there are tablets available for use.

“Combined public communications offers tablets in the facility. It has free educational material – books – in this, circumstance, what we’re talking about now, it has the TextBehind app,” Miller said. “It’s all free of charge for them to go into it. They can search their mail. They can see their pictures and all from the privacy of, you know, their bunker, or wherever they need be.”

The switch to digitally provided mail began eight days ago, but the jail has not yet received mail for inmates.

Corporal Dylan Toombs said in-coming mail has declined in the last three to four years, ever since they started allowing inmates to make unlimited video calls, 7 days a week.

“We’re also getting ready to implement chirping, which is essentially an iPod that you can text your family from,” Toombs said “So just like you would text anyone else, they’ll be able to do that from in here as well.”

Richland County Sheriff’s Office in Illinois announced Monday, it is also partnering with TextBehind at no additional cost to the county and will make the transition to mail scanning starting Monday, December 16.

Miller said he believes there will be a snowball effect, with more and more Illinois county jails eventually signing on to similar mail scanning programs.