ST. PAUL, Min. – Minnesota prisons will stop receiving direct mail on Nov. 1 after state officials announced a new step to help stop illegal drug smuggling.
Instead, all out-of-state mail is routed to a company that replicates the mail before returning it to Minnesota.
“The cost of inaction actually puts people’s lives at risk,” Paul Schnell, Minnesota’s prison commissioner, told WCCO Investigates. “We can focus our attention on areas other than mail, which takes up enormous amounts of time.”
TextBehind, the company that will process the mail, already has contracts with corrections departments in six other states, including Wisconsin and Michigan.
The contract will cost Minnesota taxpayers about $540,000 a year, but Schnell said the cost is a “crime” given the amount of money currently spent scanning and reprinting mail on-site at just a few locations.
“We knew that given the additional staff time and the cost of leasing machines and toner, it was a no-brainer from a cost perspective and could ultimately save us some resources,” he said.
Beginning in June, staff at Stillwater, Rush City and Faribault prisons began screening, scanning and reprinting mail after investigators found pieces legal and personal mail stained and contaminated with synthetic narcotics.
However, this incident in Stillwater occurred in September and led to a two-day closure. Nine staff members were hospitalized.
“I think this is the right decision,” said Sgt. Staci Stone, one of nine corrections staff sent to the hospital, said. “It’s just an extra step to protect ourselves, that’s what this means to me.”
Family and friends now address mail to a PO box. A TextBehind spokesperson added that the company keeps mail for a minimum of 30 days before shredding it, and then keeps a digital copy for up to seven years.
The sender may request that the original mail be returned.
So far this year, there have been at least 70 cases of suspected overdoses in state prisons, most of which led to lockdowns that frustrate prisoners, staff and their families.
The DOC has emphasized that its Office of Special Investigations will continue its investigation into the Stillwater incident as well as its crackdown on drug trafficking.
Jonas Kaplan
