Loved Ones Can Keep Sending Mail To NYC Jails After V-Day Tech Fail

NEW YORK CITY — Loved ones can keep sending mail to people detained in Rikers Island after technical difficulties forced city officials to cancel their Valentine's Day vote.

The Board Of Correction was slated to vote Tuesday on policy that would allow detainees to receive only digital copies of incoming letters and packages shipped directly from retailers.

But, unable to deliver a web broadcast to the public, officials postponed the meeting.

"Board of Correction did not vote to ban love (or mail) today — b/c their digital technology failed," tweeted New York City Comptroller Brad Lander. "Hope they remember that before they replace physical mail w/digital tech."

Why the Department of Correction would propose the controversial ban comes down to a single chilling word: Fentanyl.

The synthetic opioid is highly addictive, potentially deadly and difficult to detect.

"Keeping our staff and individuals in our custody safe is paramount, and one of the key ways we can do that is by eliminating contraband and drugs in our jails," a spokesperson told Patch.

"Digitizing our mail, a practice used by over 140 jails, including New York State, will not only help keep drugs out of our facilities, but it will also help increase the efficiency of mail processing. We are doing all that we can to ensure that our jails are safer for all who work and live here.”

Drug use in New York City jails increased significantly during the pandemic, when visits inside Rikers were canceled and the amount of personal mail found with liquified drugs spiked, Correction department officials said.

In 2022, Correction department officials said they seized more than 5,000 weapons and over 1,300 items of drug contraband.

This lead Commissioner Louis Molina to testify in a City Council hearing in October that the problem is mail.

"How does fentanyl get into our jails?" Molina asked. "The short answer is that most of it enters in letters and packages laced with fentanyl, literally soaked in the drug, and mailed to people in custody."

Molina submitted into evidence images of a children's book a Stephen King paperback, both of which he said had been used to deliver the drug to the jail.

But opponents challenge the characterization that "most" of the drugs come through the mail. They fear the bans will further isolate incarcerated people without really solving the problem.

The New York Bar, in an official statement, noted the bans don't address another key source of contraband: staff.

"Before embarking on changes of this magnitude, the Board of Correction should have rigorous, reliable data on how much contraband is entering the facility through mail and packages," the statement reads.

"Department of Correction investigators have previously testified in federal court that staff are the 'usual' source."

Such was the case this past October, when the Department of Correction was forced to cancel a $5 million contract with a troubled nonprofit whose workers were caught smuggling drugs into the facility, THE CITY reported at the time.

And a 2018 Department of Investigation report found a slew of "red flag" candidates had been hired to the Correction department, among them, an officer caught smuggling into the jail an iced tea bottle full of alcohol and eight plastic bags with tobacco and marijuana hidden in his underwear.

Lander, in a letter issued sent in January, shared this report with the Board of Correction and urged a compassionate response.

"How many of you have a letter, a card, a drawing, or a picture from a loved one on your desk or nightstand?" Lander asked. "They are precisely the things I look at when something makes me feel angry or hurt, to restore a sense of balance.

"Think about how much more that matters to people who are in custody, for whom such small items are the only personal possessions they have with them."