Digital plan is nixed, mail can still be paper

Rikers Island detainees can continue receiving paper mail and packages from family, friends and acquaintances after action by the city Board of Correction on Tuesday.

Correction Commissioner Louis Molina had wanted the board to limit detainees’ mail to images that would be scanned digitally so they could only be read on tablet computers.

Molina also wanted to limit detainees packages’ to items shipped directly from mail-order vendors like Amazon.

The proposal’s aim was to keep contraband from being smuggled into the jails — including the deadly drug fentanyl, which is sometimes soaked into paper mailed to inmates. “If we do not change our mail and package policy, fentanyl will get in,” Molina said. “It is more important that we keep individuals alive.”

But no Board of Correction member supported even bringing the plan to a vote at the meeting Tuesday, after the measures were roundly criticized by public defender groups and other advocates for the detained population.

“If the board passes either measure, we are prepared to bring legal action,” said Andrew Case, senior counsel with Latino Justice. “DOC’s own mismanagement of the jails cannot serve as the basis for emergency action.”

Public Advocate Jumaane Williams added that the Correction Department has not presented compelling evidence that the mail is the source of contraband, when there is far more evidence that correction staff has a much larger hand in bringing in drugs.

Molina disclosed that on Monday, the long-awaited use of a body scanning machine to check for contraband on staff had started at the Robert N. Davoren Center, a Rikers Island jail. Molina said staff would be searched at random and pledged more machines would be added in other jails.

Also on Tuesday, a proposal by new Board of Correction Chairman Dwayne Sampson to slash the number of meetings each year from nine to six was roundly slammed by critics during the meeting. No board member would bring that measure to a vote either.

“Fewer meetings and less public testimony will gut the Board of Correction,” said Daniele Gerard, a staff attorney with the advocacy gropu Children’s Rights: “This measure smacks of authoritarianism and we hold the mayor responsible.”

Molina has drawn criticism for blocking the board’s remote access to security video since Jan. 11.