Corrections officials say that electronic tablets, like those available to inmates at the Tarrant County, Texas, Jail, let inmates keep in touch with loved ones and access more entertainment and education options, but the tablets' critics say the tablets really help carceral facilities surveil prisoners while making money for the tablet providers. (Tarrant County Sheriff's Office)
Kenneth Roberts couldn't hold his daughter's drawings. Ruben Gonzalez-Magallanes couldn't smell his mother's perfume on her letters. Zachary Greenberg told his family to stop sending him mail entirely.
That's because San Mateo, California, jails, where the three men were incarcerated, barred inmates from receiving physical mail in 2021, and began scanning and digitizing that mail to be delivered via electronic tablets.
The policy has been devastating to the inmates and their families, according to Stephanie Krent, a staff attorney at the Knight First Amendment Institute, which is representing several of those inmates and families in their free-speech challenge to San Mateo's ban.
"Mail can be incredibly important, especially in the context of a prison or a jail where there are already so few means of contact," Krent told Law360.
But jails are transforming mail from a physical object that an inmate can keep in their possession into a digital file that can be archived.
"It creates a very different feeling knowing that your mail is living on for years and years and years, and long after you leave that facility people there can pull that letter up at any moment. That creates a chilling effect," Krent said.
Krent's suit, which seeks to stop the county from digitizing inmates' mail and order the delivery of physical mail restored, has moved into discovery — and isn't the only pending suit challenging jails' move to push more services onto digital tablets.
The children and parents of individuals incarcerated in two Michigan counties are suing jail officials there for allegedly banning in-person visits in exchange for a cut of the revenue private companies earn from video visits.
A growing number of prisons and jails like those in San Mateo and Michigan are implementing such limits or even bans on physical mail and in-person visits, providing inmates with electronic tablets to read scanned mail and video-visit with loved ones instead.
Corrections officials say the tablets keep drugs out of facilities, make it easier for inmates to connect with family, and offer access to far more books and entertainment options.
But prisoner advocates warn that the technology makes it easier for inmates to be surveiled while cutting them further off from the outside world. And it ensures that prison telecom companies — and sometimes corrections departments — keep making money.
"There do seem to be benefits to tablets. I wouldn't advocate eliminating them altogether, especially because incarcerated individuals have expressed a desire to have and keep tablets," said University of California at Davis School of Law professor Nila Bala.
"On the flip side, tablets can also be used as an excuse to cancel in-person programming and classes, because, 'Hey, it's on your tablet now.'"
"A Lifeline to the Outside World"
The use of electronic tablets behind bars is skyrocketing.
Just 12 state prison systems offered the tablets to inmates in 2019. By late 2024, at least 48 states were already employing or introducing the technology, with just two companies — Securus Technologies, which owns JPay Inc., and Global Tel*Link Corp., also known as ViaPath — contracted to provide and operate the tablets in most of those states, according to the Prison Policy Initiative.
This digital shift has improved prison conditions, according to corrections officials.
For starters, the technology has "most definitely" reduced the drugs and contraband being snuck into her jail via paper mail, said Shannon Herklotz, executive chief deputy in the Detention Bureau of the Tarrant County Sheriff's Office in Texas. Inmates at the Tarrant County Jail began receiving mail electronically via Smart Communications' MailGuard system in 2024.
The tablets' video and instant messaging features also make it easier for inmates to stay in touch with loved ones, particularly those who can't travel to the jail, Herklotz added.
The tablets have similarly benefited inmates in Connecticut state facilities, who were given the tablets for free in 2020 and can make phone calls to preapproved phone numbers from the privacy of their own cells as a result, according to Connecticut Department of Correction Public Information Officer Andrius Banevicius.
"Having the ability to communicate with family members has had an overall positive effect on the atmosphere of the facilities," Banevicius said.
The tablets aIso let incarcerated individuals access a much larger selection of entertainment and educational materials, including games, movies, books and podcasts, at least some of which are free, according to facility operators.
Inmates in the Tarrant County Jail can read over 70,000 free books, according to Herklotz. Connecticut inmates' tablets include free games, radio broadcasts, books and podcasts, according to Banevicius.
Colorado inmates can access a free electronic law library and purchase ebooks, music and movies, according to Christian Andrade at the Colorado Department of Corrections, which began providing its inmates with tablets in 2024.
"The decision to implement tablets was grounded in research showing that improved communication and access to meaningful programming can reduce recidivism, support rehabilitation and contribute to safer facilities," Andrade said.
Even experts who voice concerns about the tablets' use acknowledge that they come with benefits.
"If you ask incarcerated individuals, they will usually express they are glad to have tablets," said Bala, whose research focuses on the criminal justice system and emerging technologies. "They really are a lifeline to the outside world."
"Predatory and Exploitative"
It's sometimes an expensive lifeline, though, say inmate advocates.
Most facilities say inmates are provided the tablets for free, but that claim is deceptive since inmates are often charged for services they use or time they spend on those tablets, advocates point out.
West Virginia prisons don't charge inmates for their tablets, but the tablets' operator GTL/ViaPath charges them $.04-$.05 per minute to read or send messages, according to 2023 guidelines provided to Law360 by the state's Departments of Commerce and Homeland Security.
That's on top of the $0.15 inmates' loved ones pay to send each email. Video visits cost $0.20 per minute, according to the guidelines.
Inmates in Connecticut get their tablets for free, too, but pay $0.30 per email, up to $9.99 to rent a movie, and up to $19.99 to listen to an audiobook, according to Connecticut's 2019 contract with JPay, which is owned by Securus.
Calls and text messages are currently free, but the governor's proposed budget, which has yet to be finalized, would eliminate free messaging as well, according to Banevicius.
Those rates can be burdensome for inmates, many of whom come from low-income backgrounds and earn as little as a dollar a day for work they do while incarcerated, experts say.
"There are definitely concerns with this practice as predatory and exploitative since incarcerated people and their loved ones often don't have a choice but to pay the high fees if they want to stay in communication," Bala said.
In fact, while authorities insist the tablets are intended to curtail drug smuggling and improve inmates' communication with family, their use can really be traced to government efforts to rein in the cost of inmate phone calls, according to inmate advocates.
Prison telecom companies like Securus and GTL transitioned from offering telephone service to electronic tablets after multiple lawsuits, Federal Communications Commission actions and government regulation sought to cap the amount of money they can charge for phone calls, according to Prison Policy Initiative communications strategist Wanda Bertram.
"There's a very clear link between the onset of regulation and the pivot to video-calling tablets and other services like mail-scanning for prisons and jails," Bertram said.
Smart Communications scans physical mail sent to inmates at the Tarrant County Jail, who can then access their mail electronically on tablets via the company's MailGuard system. (Tarrant County Sheriff's Office)
And it's not just the companies making money, according to her and others.
Several state corrections departments earn a percentage of the fees tablet providers charge inmates, while other states earn a flat fee for access to their facilities.
Connecticut gets 10% of the revenue Securus earns from most of the tablet services inmates pay for, and a 30% cut of what they pay for music under its 2019 contract. The Missouri Department of Corrections' 2024 contract with Securus requires the company to pay the state 1% of all the revenue it raises from its tablets. California's Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation gets a flat $200,000 annual fee from GTL under their 2020 contract.
"The [California] Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation knows how important it is for incarcerated people to stay connected with their loved ones. Each incarcerated individual is provided a tablet at no cost, allowing for ample opportunities to connect through video visits, electronic messaging, and audio calls. The enhanced communication project aims to strengthen the bonds between the incarcerated population with their families and communities," a CDCR spokesperson told Law360 in a statement.
Securus, GTL and the Missouri DOC did not respond to requests for comment.
Those agreements incentivize prisons and jails to limit inmates' options for communication and entertainment to the tablets and to keep the prices inmates pay for those services high, according to inmate advocates.
"When you do have competition between companies, it's basically between who can offer the facilities the most in kickback revenue," Bertram said. "They will search for the provider that will give them the most money in commission payments."
More Closely Watched, But Less Closely Connected
In addition to reaching into inmates' wallets, the tablets let authorities reach into their communications, experts warn.
Corrections officials can access all the scanned mail, text messages, emails and videos sent and received via the tablets, which can be stored indefinitely, according to inmate advocates.
"These systems don't just track what's being said. They enable facilities to log, store and even analyze communications over time, especially with the use of artificial intelligence and virtually unlimited data storage," Bala explained. "Reading habits can be monitored — how long individuals spend on a certain page, and what they read over time."
Even more concerning to some advocates is the fact that the private contractors also have access to all this information.
Smart Communications, which is responsible for digitizing the mail in both San Mateo and Tarrant County jails, stores scanned copies of that mail for seven years after the incarcerated person has been released, according to Electronic Frontier Foundation senior staff attorney Cara Gagliano, who is also representing the plaintiffs suing San Mateo over its jails' digitization of inmate mail.
"It goes even further than that, though, because MailGuard is just one in a suite of services that Smart Communications provides to the county. So they would also have recordings of video visits, copies of electronic messages and records of commissary account deposits, for example," Gagliano said.
Smart Communications and San Mateo's sheriff and attorneys did not respond to requests for comment.
It's not just inmates whose privacy is being compromised, advocates point out. Authorities and companies also can access communications sent by inmates' family and friends, as well as those senders' personal information like addresses and phone numbers.
"Even attorney-client communications have been caught in this surveillance," Bala said. "Family members face a terrible choice: Choose to consent to surveillance or not get to communicate with their incarcerated loved one at all."
Several of Krent and Gagliano's clients and their families did actually choose to stop communicating by mail entirely rather than provide that consent, she said.
"They care very deeply about being able to communicate freely and they felt that was no longer possible under the policy," Krent explained. "People made really difficult decisions to stop writing letters to one another."
Censorship is another concern, according to Moira Marquis, director of higher education partnerships at the Petey Greene Program, which offers tutoring for the incarcerated and formerly incarcerated.
The tablets may let inmates read more books, but which books are available is completely controlled by the companies, Marquis pointed out.
The electronic libraries available to inmates, for instance, often don't include many popular or current books, but do contain a surprisingly large amount of religious material, according to Marquis.
Books are usually censored over security concerns, but money can create indirect censorship as well, according to experts.
The free books available on the tablets are often free because their copyrights have expired, meaning much of what's available is at least 100 years old. And where inmates are charged per minute to use their tablets, inmates who lack funds can have their reading limited as well.
Advocates also worry that the tablets actually cut inmates off from loved ones rather than connecting them.
The replacement of physical mail with digitized mail makes inmates, who can't hold and keep their families' letters, feel more disconnected, according to Gagliano.
"Mail is special. The lack of time constraints allows for deeper conversations, and they cherish the ability to keep a favorite letter or a child's drawing in their pocket to pull out when they're having a bad day," Gagliano said of her clients. "That's not possible with San Mateo's digitized mail policy."
Ebooks and electronic law libraries, meanwhile, can lead prisons to shut down physical libraries where inmates can request help from librarians. And the increased availability of video visits has caused some facilities to limit or end in-person visits.
The children and parents of individuals incarcerated in two Michigan counties are suing jail officials as well as Securus and GTL over just such a move, accusing the counties' sheriffs of banning in-person visits in exchange for a cut of the revenue the companies earn from video visits.
"The integrity of the parent-child relationship depends on physical presence and contact. The ability to sit across from each other, to make eye contact, to make physical contact, for a baby to smell her mother, and for a father to rub his child's back keeps those relationships healthy and alive," one of the complaints alleged.
Corrections officials push back on these criticisms.
Inmates have always had correspondence and calls monitored for security reasons, they point out. And paper mail has become obsolete outside of jail as well as inside, according to Herklotz.
"The use of electronic transmission in the jail setting mimics the outside world more so than the antiquated, slow-moving process of so-called snail mail," Herklotz said.
But Krent and her clients strongly disagree.
A California court ruled in 2024 that their lawsuit could proceed on their free-speech claim, and the case is in discovery. San Mateo jails' ban on physical mail is still in place, though, according to Krent, who is opposing it in court.
"Our clients joined the lawsuit because they were really concerned about what happens when all of a sudden a drawing that your daughter makes is not something you're able to hold and bring with you," Krent said.
"To lose that last connection to what feels like the real world, to their loved ones is really, really damaging to people who are on the inside," she added.
-- Edited by Orlando Lorenzo. Graphics by Jason Mallory.
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