https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/n7zpbk/unconscionable-nyc-wants-to-scan-incarcerated-peoples-mail-and-make-them-read-it-on-tablets

Last October, the commissioner of New York City’s jail system proposed a plan that is quickly becoming the norm in correctional facilities throughout the country: banning physical mail and replacing it with scanned versions of the mail that incarcerated people must read exclusively on tablet devices. 

Correctional facilities across the country have a variety of rationales they use to justify this, but largely it boils down to the fact that scanned electronic mail is easier to surveil than physical mail. NYC’s plan is ostensibly in response to a spike in overdoses in NYC’s jail system. Commissioner Louis Molina has claimed that fentanyl-soaked children’s drawings and t-shirts are being sent to jails, prompting him to request that mail be sent to an off-site vendor for scanning. The new rules would also limit packages to those sold from a limited, pre-approved set of vendors.