Texas prisons to phase out physical mail to reduce contraband despite advocate protests (www.tpr.org)

submitted 1 year ago by YoBuckStopsHere@lemmy.world to c/politics@lemmy.world

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[-] GAMER@lemmy.world 0 points 1 year ago

I had a friend who was in prison. They charge for everything electric in one way or another. For example. You can send them an email. But you have to pay to send it. And you had to pay for them to have a device and it's batteries for them to read it.

I wasn't going to do that. So I wrote letters and kept them "interesting." My personal favorite was aging paper using tea. Using a feather quill pen. Writing in a mixture of home made ink using black walnut husks, coffee, and some acrylic paint as a binder.

He said they go through all the letters. The one I sent confused the shit out of the guards. And, they asked me not to do it again. But he said it was one of his favorite things he got in prison and the whole wing new about it. Nothing illegal. Just strange. We played D&D together.

Nothing raises morale like a letter. He's out and doing well. He still mentions the letter a fair bit.

[-] Raphael@lemmy.world -2 points 1 year ago

I had a friend who was in prison. They charge for everything electric in one way or another. For example. You can send them an email. But you have to pay to send it. And you had to pay for them to have a device and it’s batteries for them to read it.

I thought you liked capitalism.

[-] cjones666@lemmy.world 0 points 1 year ago

Yes, let’s do everything we can to dehumanize inmates while they are incarcerated. I’m sure that will make it so much easier for them when they are eventually released and return to normal society. /s

[-] Mr_Buscemi@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 points 1 year ago

They honestly don't want them to come out.

I have a ton of relatives who live in Huntsville Texas where seven prisons are located. They all work for them and some even live on site. I've heard them call the inmates animals and that's why they are treated like this. It's absolutely sickening to hear them say all the things about the inmates.

I recently lost a old friend after she spiraled downwards after having enough weed/vape products on her to be considered a felony. She tried to recover from being in prison but being a felon just made it impossible for her to find a path.

She killed herself by taking too much heroin the night before Thanksgiving.

Her prison sentence was in Huntsville so there is a good chance one of my relatives was a guard at her prison. Hearing my family dehumanize my friend was what made me decide to cut off all contact with that half of my family tree.

[-] teft@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

I’m sure that will make it so much easier for them when they are eventually released and return to normal society.

Why would we want that? High recidivism rates guarantee full prisons. It's just a coincidence that these prisons are for profit. /s

[-] Harvest6671@lemmy.world 0 points 1 year ago

Because we seem to value punishment over rehabilitation or even justice, most people in Texas will be very happy to hear about this change. They see prisoners more like animals than human. For example, most Texas prisons don’t have air conditioning. Imagine being in a room at 100+ degrees and high humidity with no fan. How long until you snap?

[-] Cethin@lemmy.zip -2 points 1 year ago

At a certain level, that has to increase the rate of violent crime. Personally, I don't think I could handle that and it'd be better to just die than face that without a way out. It's literal torture, with few prospects once you're out anyway.

this post was submitted on 16 Jul 2023

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