As the Los Angeles Sheriff's Office considers adopting mail digitization in County jails, legal organizations flag concerns and ongoing litigation related to the practice.
The Social Justice Legal Foundation, the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and the ACLU of Southern California sent a letter to the Los Angeles County Sheriff Civilian Oversight Commission and attended a Commission meeting to urge the county to reject a proposal to digitize all mail sent to inmates in Los Angeles County jails. A ban on physical mail undermines free speech and privacy. It cuts off a key form of communication between incarcerated people and their loved ones.
There are no clear safeguards or limits to how correctional authorities and third-party vendors store this correspondence, let alone to how they search it. There’s also very little evidence that such policies reduce drug use in jails. In 2023, SJLF, along with the Knight Institute and EFF challenged a similar mail digitization policy in San Mateo County. This case is ongoing.
Read the full letter here.