Sheriff Maketa Banning Mail?

This is really bad idea there are plenty of people who are in jail who can't afford to make phone calls or who have loved ones who can't visit. We know that maintaining strong ties to family and community is the best way to keep recidivism rates down. I hope that Sheriff Maketa doesn't choose to follow this path...

El Paso County Sheriff Terry Maketa is either making jail a less pleasant experience, or, as his critics charge, he needs a new role model.

Earlier this year, Maketa emulated Sheriff Joe Arpaio of Maricopa County, Ariz., by moving inmates from his crowded jail into giant tents.

Following in Arpaio’s footsteps again, Maketa said he is “exploring the possibility” of banning letters, packages and magazines to inmates at the county jail, allowing them to receive and send only postcards.

“They can still communicate. They’re just going to have to do it on postcards,” Maketa said.

“If it’s private, maybe they ought to have that conversation over the phone or during visitation.”

If enacted, it would be the first such ban in Colorado.

Arpaio did the same thing last month, though Maketa said he wasn’t aware of that.

Maketa said the volume of mail coming into the jail, 500 pieces a week and jumping to 650 between Thanksgiving and Christmas, overwhelms the employees, one full time and one part time, who screen it. During high-volume times, reinforcements have to be brought in to handle it.

They open sealed envelopes to check for drugs and other contraband and remove the stamp and glue, because people try to hide drugs there, Maketa said.

The letters can be read — and deputies can monitor inmates’ phone conversations and video visitations — if officials have a security concern.

“When you’re in jail, your expectation of privacy should be limited,” Maketa said.

If magazines were banned, he said, some would be made available for purchase in the jail commissary.

He acknowledged that inmates would have less privacy, and that they would no longer be able to receive photos and other items from outside the jail.

Sealed mail from attorneys would continue to be forwarded unread to inmates, Maketa said.

Maketa, who raised the idea of banning letters at an El Paso County Commissioners meeting Thursday, said that he thinks it’s legal to ban letters and that it would save the sheriff’s office money.

His opinion, however, wasn’t shared by a prisoner advocacy group and the American Civil Liberties Union, which said it would be an unfair and possibly illegal restriction on inmates’ communication.

Mike Dell, a board member of prisoner advocacy group Colorado CURE, said letters from home are often an inmate’s only way to get support and information to help in their defense.

“One of the reasons a lot of guys do their time successfully is because their family is supporting them,” Dell said. The space and privacy concerns of using postcards would limit that, he said.

He questioned whether other controversial Arpaio measures, including chain gangs and mandatory pink underwear, are next.

“I think the sheriff of El Paso County needs to find a role model other than the sheriff of Maricopa County,” said Mark Silverstein, legal director of the Colorado ACLU, who called Maketa’s proposal a possible freedom of speech violation.

“Inmates have a First Amendment right to communicate with friends, family and anyone else, including government officials,” Silverstein said. “They have a right to do that in traditional letters that are sealed and private.


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