Last week, we took a look at the lingering effects of the New York correctional officers’ wildcat strike, which ended in March. To bring officers back to work, one of the demands that the state met was to introduce scanners for legal mail, intended to help prevent drugs from entering prisons. Striking guards argued their safety was at risk by both exposure to drugs, and by prisoners acting erratically after using drugs, according to the Times Union.

By late July, the scanners were already in use at 36 of the state’s 42 prisons, and will soon be in all facilities, according to a Department of Corrections and Community Supervision spokesperson. The department has so far been able to bypass the formal rulemaking process due to the emergency conditions of the strike, but it is now proposing to make the policy permanent.

Those moves have ignited controversy, and reflect a long-running debate in prison systems across the country between the need for security measures and respect for incarcerated people’s access to mail as a vital avenue to connect with families and legal help.

When prison administrators, lawmakers and advocates talk about “scanning” incoming mail, there are two separate things they can mean. One is the digitization of mail by copying the contents into an electronic format so prisoners can read it on a tablet. The other meaning — more accurately described as screening, as in the case of New York’s new system — is technology to physically test mail for signs that it has been soaked in, or otherwise contaminated with illicit substances. Incarcerated people and advocates have expressed concerns with both kinds of scanning, having to do with privacy, delays and the sentimental value of handwritten letters and physical keepsakes.

In New York, regular mail from family and friends was already photocopied before the strike. The new scanners are a trickier proposition, because legal mail is protected by attorney-client privilege.

Read the full article about New York’s prison mail scanners by Rebecca McCray and Jamiles Lartey at The Marshall Project.