DearMom: Family newsletters for inmates

[lippytak]

BLUF: DearMom lets inmates easily send letters to many friends/family at once via email Project Needs: Basic validation Status: Pie

(h/t to @alanjosephwilliams and @daguar for the idea - I'm just jotting it all down)

Post mail is one of the few protected means of communications for inmates, including those in solitary (SHU - Solitary Housing Units). DearMom is a simple digital service for inmates that gives them an easy way to send letters to many friends/family members at once. Here's how it might work:

• Inmate writes a letter and sends it to our e-PO Box
• We transcribe (MTurk?) + forward the letter to a set of friends/family via email
• The email has a 'subscribe' link at the bottom so people could share it around
• Friends/family can reply to the email and we'll reverse the process, sending it back to the inmate via post mail

There are lots of subtleties (public/private, archiving, seeding initial friends/family emails, inmates moving addresses, etc.) and obviously not all of this needs to be included for an MVP.

Readings:

• Raise the crime rate: https://nplusonemag.com/issue-13/politics/raise-the-crime-rate/
• Solitary in Iran Nearly Broke Me. Then I Went Inside America's Prisons: http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/10/solitary-confinement-shane-bauer
• NPR on CA hunger strike: http://www.npr.org/2014/03/06/286794055/how-four-inmates-launched-a-statewide-hunger-strike-from-solitary
• The Plot from Solitary: http://nymag.com/news/features/solitary-secure-housing-units-2014-2/
• A look inside a SHU: http://audiovision.scpr.org/294/a-look-inside-a-security-housing-unit?slide=16

Quotes:

The Justice Department now seems to be saying that prison rape accounted for the majority of all rapes committed in the US in 2008, likely making the United States the first country in the history of the world to count more rapes for men than for women. - source

I am filled with the sensation of drowning each and every day.” “I was housed next door to…guys who have eaten and drank their own body waste and who have thrown their own body waste in the cells that I and others were housed in. I cry. - source

There is a real need to create a single-site where American prison writers can write about and document their experience and where free-world citizens—including scholars, and students in a growing field of study of criminal justice and mass incarceration—can access such writing. No such archive yet exists. The American Prison Writing Archive will be a place where incarcerated people can bear witness to the conditions in which they live, to what is working and what is not inside American prisons, and where they can contribute to public debate about the American prison crisis. - source

Resources:

• CA prison locations: http://www.cdcr.ca.gov/Facilities_Locator/index.html
• CA inmate info handbook (visiting rules, mailing rules, etc.): http://www.bop.gov/locations/institutions/trm/TRM_aohandbook.pdf
• How to contact inmates: http://cdcr.ca.gov/Reports_Research/howtocontact.html
• Sourcebook on solitary: http://solitaryconfinement.org/uploads/sourcebook_web.pdf

Other related projects:

• The American Prison Writing Archive: http://www.dhinitiative.org/projects/apwa/
• Prisoner blogging - https://betweenthebars.org/
• Many prisoner pen pal projects: http://www.prisonpenpals.net/, http://www.writeaprisoner.com/, http://www.meet-an-inmate.com/, pelicanbayprisonproject.org/penpalsac.htm

[fureigh]

Someone else who's roughly in this space (though more focused on payment, with one-to-one messaging as a relatively recent addition) is http://jpay.com. Could or could not be relevant.

[lippytak]

Some post mail API resources that may or may not be relevant:

• https://www.lob.com/
• https://sendwrite.com/
• http://www.postalmethods.com/
• https://milsapp.com/
• http://www.virtualpostmail.com/
• And THE thread: http://www.quora.com/APIs/What-are-the-best-Postal-snail-mail-send-and-receive-APIs

[lippytak]

And a bit more on the SAD state of snail mail > email services:

• http://ask.metafilter.com/145416/Earth-Class-Mail-Substitutes
• http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/travel-technology/767081-mail-forwarding-services.html
• http://www.quora.com/What-services-scan-paper-mail-and-send-via-email

[lippytak]

And a fascinating tidbit from http://www.writeaprisoner.com/faq.aspx#How_does_WriteAPrisoner.com_work:

14) I am a researcher from a university, and I would like to contact some of your members. Is it okay for me to write to them? Yes. Additionally, we will mail up to one hundred printed surveys out to inmates on your behalf. The recipients will all be randomly selected inmates within the United States. The survey must contain a return address, and it must fit onto one page, front and back print.

A template letter to send to prisons that are interfering with the incoming mail: http://www.writeaprisoner.com/first-amendment-letter.aspx

And they deliver emails:

1) Can I e-mail a prisoner you have listed? Yes. Most prisoners on our website have his or her own personal e-mail address where you can e-mail your first message. Once you send it to us, we will print and send it to the prisoner. Be sure to include a return postal mailing address so the prisoner can write you back. Prisoners cannot reply via e-mail.

Can we send business reply envelopes, stamps, or pre-stamped postcards to inmates?

• Not for Lane County: 'Otherwise acceptable mail or publications containing a business reply envelope or reply card will be distributed to you after the envelope or reply card has been discarded.'
• No, you can't send stamps in most facilities

[lippytak]

From Adam Lovell himself responding to my inquiry to http://writeaprisoner.com:

1 - I would like more information on your service to conduct surveys with inmates. How much would it cost to survey 100 inmates? How would I do so? What other constraints are there?

We can send them on your behalf at no cost. We can simply piggyback them on another mailing already going out. We would just need a copy of the survey emailed to us. Ideally, it would be best if we could fit it on one sheet of paper using front and back printing. Do you want only 100, or would it be better to get a larger sampling?

2 - In general is it possible to give inmates a way to reply for free via post mail? Maybe using pre-stamped envelopes or business reply mail? I know some facilities allow you to send stamps or pre-addressed envelopes, but it seems like in general inmates have to pay for their own postage. Is that correct?

I would recommend avoiding pre-stamped envelopes or envelopes in general. The facilities can be very particular with what is allowed in. Regardless, I think you'll be surprised by the response rate. Inmates like having a voice.

3 - Do inmates in SHUs have access to post mail? Are they able to list themselves on your website?

Yes to both questions. We deal with many inmates in SHUs.

[lippytak]

These aren't full fledged project ideas but I wanted to get them down as areas to explore in the realm of 'digital services for prisoners':

• Survey platform: Give researchers, policy makers, and advocates a simple way to run large surveys with prisoners. The researcher identifies the questions, eligible facilities, and the total # of inmates to survey. We automatically send out the surveys, process the response letters, and publish the data. This seems possible given http://lob.com (outgoing mail API) + http://earthclassmail.com (digitize incoming mail) + http://inmatelocator.cdcr.ca.gov/.
• Voting: One particular use case (or related project) would be to send prisons voting materials, publish their votes, and do some simple 'what if' analyses highlighting any results that would change if inmates had voting rights.

---

Here's what it's like to receive a letter send via the Lob API:

[connor11528]

This seems like a really cool idea, surprised something like this for America's prisoners and families of prisoners does not exist already (also +1 for the n plus one link)

[jtashea]

This is a great idea. Keeping inmates better connected to their families would positively impact post-prison transition, which (studies show) has the capacity to lower recidivism. Plus, this project would make prison a little more humane.

That being said, why do the letters need to be typed? Handwriting is such a personal attribute, and I think typing the correspondence robs the letters of their individuality (which is already what prisoners experience in all other aspects of their prison-bound lives). Why not just scan the letters? It's both one less step and provides a more personal means of communication, which is important to maintain those personal relationships while away from family for so long. This would also mean that the prisoner or family (I'm thinking kids specifically) could draw their message if they don't want to/can't write.

Also, do you know the stats on internet/data penetration for families with at least one member in prison? I feel like that information would be helpful when considering the structure and execution of the project.

I realize this offer is a bit premature, but if you want to beta this in a juvenile facility, let me know. I'd be happy to make that connection.

Would love to be involved if you move forward on this project. Just let me know. Also, happy new year!

[civicissuebot]

Hello! This issue looks like it still needs help! It's been clicked on 1 times through the Civic Issue Finder on http://www.codeforamerica.org/. Can this issue be closed or does it still need some assistance?

If you wrote this issue, you can always update the labels for specifying tasks, add more info in the description to make it easier to contribute, or re-write the title to make more contributors interested in helping out. If you are an open source contributor, ask and see how you can help by commenting or check out more open issues in this repo at https://github.com/codeforamerica/project-ideas/issues.

Just doing a little :seedling: open source gardening :seedling: of Brigade projects! For more info/tools for creating civic issues, check out Got Issues Thank you!

[connor11528]

thaaat's annoying. still down to hack on a project like this @lippytak

a mentor of mine's working at the last mile program and there's also the San quentin newspaper. http://pigeon.ly/ is a ycombinator funded startup out of vegas building web services for inmates and other people