After two inmates jailed for sex offenses sent more than 20 letters to children, the Boulder County Jail became the first in Colorado to change the way inmates can send mail.
Correspondence from inmates now must be written on 8 1/2-by-5 1/2-inch jail-issued manila postcards.
“We did some research to find the largest postcard that would still be considered a postcard so they could have as much writing space as we could give them,” said Larry Hank, Boulder County Jail division chief.
Incoming mail rules have not changed, and legal mail can still be sent with supervision.
Officials first learned of the letters sent to children in December. Deputies believe inmates Gino Rael and Damien Whitehead got the letters out of the jail by sealing them in envelopes and then placing the envelopes into other envelopes addressed to a third party.
Since Boulder County Jail does not have a mailroom, letters sent from the jail were not opened unless there was a reason to believe the correspondence was suspicious. The envelopes were stamped to indicate they were from the jail before being sent.
Investigators say the third party removed the jailhouse envelope and forwarded the unstamped envelope to children.
Though some of the letters were postmarked in Florida, the third-party mailer was not identified or located. The case is now closed, Boulder County sheriff’s spokesman Rick Brough said.
Rael was charged with a probation violation. Whitehead was not charged.
Brough said the letters were not sexual in nature. “They were requests to be pen pals, asking about their interests,” he said.
The new mail policy started almost a month ago, and some inmates are bothered by the lack of privacy for their correspondence.
One inmate, Raed Mubarak, who sent postcards to various news outlets, said he thinks it’s a violation of his First Amendment rights. He also is concerned that inmates are not allowed to draw, which may stop illiterate prisoners from communicating with their families.
Hank said the prohibition on drawing is intended to keep gang members from communicating in code.
“We are restricted with writing space and our privacy is compromised,” Mubarak wrote. “BCSO has violated all inmates’ Constitutional rights, and their actions are inciting other jails to follow.”
Hank said he has received inquiries from other county jails interested in applying similar mail rules.
Hank got the idea from jails in Oregon and Arizona. The idea has quickly spread in the past year to jails across the country, including facilities in Florida and Missouri.
In 2007, a group of Arizona inmates challenged the postcard-only mail policy in federal court. But a judge upheld the Maricopa County Jail’s policy, saying it did not violate the inmates’ First Amendment rights.
Jail inmates in Florida, along with their family members, are challenging a similar policy, according to a report by ABC News. That lawsuit is pending.
Hank said he is not violating anyone’s rights. “They still can communicate,” he said. “There’s nothing to guarantee how much you can write.
“At this point my concern is third-party mail. We have a duty to make sure the community is protected.”
