Minnesota Prisoners Getting Scanned Mail, Kept Waiting 18 Months for Tablets
Starting November 1, 2024, prisoners held by the Minnesota Department of Corrections (DOC) stopped getting physical mail, which is now diverted to Baltimore for electronic scanning by private contractor TextBehind. Printed copies of the scans—complete with all the errors that go along with the technology—are then shipped to prisons for distribution through mailrooms. Or senders can avoid that delay by sending electronic documents to TextBehind and paying for their delivery to prisoner tablets.
However, when DOC switched tablet providers in May 2023, prisoners could no longer get a device from former contractor JPay. They also couldn’t get one from new contractor ViaPath, formerly Global Tel*Link (GT*L); in fact, those tablets were not set for distribution until December 2024 in one state prison—and 2025 for the rest.
Meanwhile, many prisoners were left with JPay tablets that died—locking them out of downloaded music, movies, podcasts, books, games, messages and even photos. Worse, that content, even the part they paid for, cannot be restored.
Those with operable tablets have still been able to buy new downloads during the year and half that ViaPath/GT*L has taken to ready its tablets for distribution—a delay that DOC Spokesperson Aaron Swanum blamed on satisfying requirements of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, 42 U.S.C. ch.126, § 12101, et seq.
Because apparently neither the DOC nor ViaPath/GT*L could anticipate the requirements of a law passed 35 years ago.
The DOC blamed the ban on physical mail, and the resulting switch to TextBehind’s service, on a September 2024 incident when nine employees at the state prison in Stillwater were sent to the hospital after suspected exposure to drug-soaked letters. However, that suspicion has not been confirmed, and the incident remains under investigation.
Tellingly, when the state made phone calls free for its 8,000 prisoners in July 2023, the DOC was deprived of about $1.3 million in kickbacks collected in 2022. Kickbacks from tablet-delivered services in 2023 fell short of that, totaling just $274,365—not least because the law that made calls free also banned the DOC from collecting kickbacks on calls, video calls or messages. But other downloads—along with associated money-transfer services—are fair game. Under its new contract with Viapath/GT*L, the DOC’s kickbacks on these will rise from 5% to 20%.
For now, prisoners without tablet access—and money to use tablet services—must stand in line to make free calls or use paid kiosk time for messaging, on top of waiting for their scanned mail to wind its way to their prison mailroom and then to their cell.
In 2025, that is what the prison-industrial complex calls progress.
Sources: KSTP, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Minnesota Reformer
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