LetterAgent
Mail physical letters by just asking your AI assistant.
Yes, for regular letters: prisons may open and inspect inmate mail for contraband, and in practice that often means reading it. But mail marked as legal correspondence gets special handling: it is opened only in the inmate's presence, and staff may check it for contraband without reading the contents. This is general information, not legal advice.
| Type of mail | How it is handled | Can staff read it? |
|---|---|---|
| General incoming mail | Opened and inspected for contraband: drugs, weapons plans, escape material | Yes; inspection routinely includes reading |
| Legal mail (attorney, court, legal aid) | Opened only in the inmate's presence; checked for contraband only | No, not the substance of the legal content |
| Outgoing mail | May be inspected before it leaves the facility | Yes, in most systems |
| Mail in scanning programs | Original destroyed after digitizing; inmate views images on a kiosk or tablet | The scanned image is reviewed as part of screening |
Facility security. Courts have held that prisons can restrict mail when the rule reasonably serves a legitimate security interest, and keeping contraband out qualifies. Letters are a known smuggling route: drugs pressed into paper, coded messages, and contraband plans all travel through envelopes. So the mailroom opens general correspondence, checks for hidden items, and reads enough of the content to spot threats. Nobody is pretending to ignore the words on the page.
That is the rule in both the US and Canada, though the exact policy wording differs by system. Federal prisons in the US follow Bureau of Prisons program statements; Canadian federal institutions follow Correctional Service of Canada directives on offender correspondence. State and provincial facilities each publish their own mailroom policies, and some are stricter than others.
Correspondence with an attorney, a court, or a legal aid organization is treated as privileged. The protection is real but narrow: staff may open the envelope in the inmate's presence and shake it out or fan the pages to look for contraband, but they are not supposed to read the contents.
Two catches. First, the mail has to be recognizable as legal mail: it should be marked clearly, for example "Legal Mail" or "Attorney-Client Privileged," and carry the sender's professional identification. Unmarked mail from a law office can get treated as ordinary mail. Second, the privilege protects the correspondence, not the envelope as a smuggling tool: if staff suspect the legal-mail channel is being misused, policies allow closer scrutiny under specific procedures.
Some facilities have switched to digitizing all incoming mail: letters are scanned, the originals are destroyed, and the inmate reads the images on a kiosk or tablet. The stated reason is contraband control, since scanning defeats drug-soaked paper. Civil-liberties advocates have challenged the practice, particularly where originals such as children's drawings are destroyed.
Where these programs run, legal mail is supposed to keep its protections, but the details have been litigated in several jurisdictions. If the inmate you are writing to is in a scanning facility, assume nothing about privacy and check that facility's published policy.
LetterAgent can mail to US and Canadian addresses, and a correctional facility with a street address is an address like any other: include the inmate's full name, identification or booking number, and the exact address format the facility publishes. LetterAgent letters are plain 8.5x11 paper in a standard double-window envelope with no inserts, which matches what many facilities allow.
But check the facility's current mail policy before you send. Many ban colored paper, stickers, greeting cards, or anything beyond plain letters; some reject mail that does not match their formatting rules exactly. A letter that looks routine to the post office can still bounce off a prison mailroom if it breaks the facility's rules.
Ready to mail it? Send your letter with LetterAgent: describe it to your AI assistant, approve the exact quoted price, and it is printed and mailed.
LetterAgent is a working name. Prices include print, postage, and our service fee. US prices in USD, Canadian prices in CAD (Canadian prices exclude applicable sales tax, added at checkout). Currently in private testing.
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