Thread by @WorthRises

Imagine getting a hand drawn birthday card from your kid. Now, imagine that instead you got a photocopy of that birthday card -- or worse, just a small digital copy on a tablet -- AND that someone threw your kid's card in the trash in some corporate warehouse.

Angry? THREAD.

PA did it first: replaced direct mail in prisons with privatized mail photocopying. Now, this cruel practice is quickly spreading. It's already been rolled out in many local jails, and is being piloted in the federal prison system and in MA prisons.

The corp introducing mail photocopying to prisons and jails is Smart Communications and their product is MailGuard. They make $4M a year on the PA contract, where families have reported delays in mail delivery and low image quality, like this:

slate.com/technology/201…

They market MailGuard as a security tool intended to reduce contraband, but with the majority of contraband entering facilities through correctional staff, this is nothing more than an excuse for another dehumanizing profiteering scheme between the public and private sectors.

"There is nothing like being able to touch a letter, reread it, go back over it. I still have a Christmas card from my daughter and I was incarcerated in 2007... I cherish that card." - Cassandra Bensahih, @StopMaSolitary

truthout.org/articles/new-m…

"...the growth of the prison mail industry serves as a reminder that the distinction btw private and public prisons is increasingly trivial. The rise of in-house photocopying shows how public institutions can undermine prisoners’ rights without relying on private companies, too."

Prediction: Smart Communications founders are planning a multi-million dollar exit selling their corp to one of the prison telecom's big three: Securus, GTL, or ICSolutions.

If they do, we'll be opposing it in front of the FCC like we did successfully with the Securus/ICS deal.

In the meantime, we're calling on lawmakers to ban this new mail photocopying practice before the problem grows to be the size of the prison phone problem.

@JoeBiden @POTUS @KamalaHarris @VP @CoryBooker @amyklobuchar @RepBobbyRush @BernieSanders @ewarren #merrickgarland