Jail mail

CORALVILLE - Perched on a stool in front of a computer screen in the Iowa Medical and Classification Center on Tuesday, a 21-year-old prisoner got some good news.

“Baby,” was the subject head on an “o-mail” he received through the prison's new electronic mail system for offenders. “You're an uncle again.”

Todd, who prison officials would not allow to give his last name or discuss the crime that landed him a 20-year prison sentence, said his sister delivered a baby boy at 6:30 a.m. Tuesday. He received the electronic announcement at 11 a.m.

“That was pretty exciting to know within a couple of hours of her having a kid,” said Todd, 21, who shot back a quick congratulations email.

Without the Iowa Department of Corrections' email system for offenders - known in the state's nine prisons as “o-mail” - Todd said he wouldn't have heard about his new nephew for days.

The Department of Corrections launched an initial version of its email program in 2009 at the Iowa Correctional Institution for Women allowing inmates to receive emails but not send them. The state expanded the incoming email program to all its prisons in July 2010.

The women's facility in Mitchellville became the first Iowa prison to allow offenders to send emails in April 2010, and the North Central Correctional Facility in Rockwell City was second to enable outgoing email in August 2010, said Toni Tassone, executive officer for the corrections department.

Coralville's Medical and Classification Center has been offering prisoners the option of sending outgoing email since May, and Tassone said the state is aiming to have the balance of its prisons sending outgoing email by the end of this month.

O-mail is different from email in the safeguards that make sure offenders don't abuse the system. For starters, prisoners can correspond only with people who want to communicate with them. Friends and family members must sign up for emails with an inmate through CorrLinks.com.

Both prisoners and their contacts must pay 25 cents to send an email, Tassone said. The email system provider gets 14 cents, and the prisons get 11 cents. From July 2010 to June, the state brought in $16,235 from the email system, all of which went back into providing the service, Tassone said.

In facilities that allow only incoming email, prison staff members print off the messages and deliver them to the inmates on paper. Prisoners in facilities that offer outgoing messages can sit at a computer monitor to read and type their own messages.

Tassone stressed that inmates can't do anything on those computers but check and send email.

“They can't surf the Web,” she said.

Inmates transfer money from their commissary accounts to buy emails. Prisoners get 30 minutes and 13,000 characters per email, and prison staff members screen incoming and outgoing messages for “flagged” words - like “escape” and “bomb” - that could pose a security threat.

Shifting inmate communication from old-fashioned letter writing to email benefits prisoners, their families and friends and the corrections department, Tassone said.

Staff members can more easily screen emails using an electronic program that automatically catches flagged words. Skimming emails also is faster than opening and searching envelopes, she said.

From the inmate perspective, sending email is cheaper. They have to pay 48 cents for a stamped envelope to send a traditional letter. The savings translate to family members and friends as well, said Fred Scaletta, spokesman for the Department of Corrections.

“It allows them to communicate without having to address an envelope,” Scaletta said.

And, inmates say, email enables more fluid and frequent communication with their loved ones, allowing them to keep up with what is happening in their lives and with what is happening in the world.

“I've been here for a while, and things are changing so fast,” said Doren, 48, who also wasn't allowed to provide his last name or details about the crime that got him a 30-year prison sentence.

Doren, who has been in the Coralville prison since 2003, said he emails questions to his nephew about technological advances - like iPods and Twitter. He doesn't want to have a lot of catching up to do when he gets out, and the time and money email saves makes it easier to stay updated.

“This helps me stay focused on positive things,” he said.

The prison's email system has skyrocketed since it began, Lt. Vicki Garrett said.

“We get quite a lot of emails,” said Garrett, among the staff members in charge of screening incoming and outgoing messages in Coralville. “It's really catching on.”

Iowa Medical and Classification Center inmate Doren, 48, who refused to give his last name, talks about the new email system for offenders known as "o-mail" Wednesday, Aug. 3, 2011 at the Iowa Medical and Classification Center in Coralville.