The last holiday card I received was decorated with red and black plaid and metallic gold trim. The gilded words “Merry Christmas” appeared across the center. Inside was my mom’s loopy cursive. She signed it with the names of my family members, like she always does.
Two months after I received the card, on Feb. 1, 2025, Oregon’s state prison system changed the rules for incoming mail. Non-white envelopes and cardstock would no longer be accepted. The rule effectively ended colorful and cheerful holiday cards for incarcerated people.
A memo from administration posted on our unit bulletin boards said, in part: “The mail rule has been revised to address concerns regarding safety, security and the well-being of both adults in custody and staff.”
In other words, the mail rule change aims to prevent drugs from entering our facility.
Increase in drug use
I don’t need to read between the lines of a memo to know drug use has increased here.
I see it in a handshake on the stairwell — passed with a subtle gesture, like tipping a bellhop. I see it in plastic baggies blowing across the prison yard, lazily tossed aside after a sale. I see it in a mom in the visiting room who pulls strips of plastic-wrapped paper out of her young daughter’s pocket, then passes them under the table to the man she is visiting — because no one would think to check the pockets of a first grader.
Drugs have always been available in Oregon prisons, but lower costs for newer drugs have ramped up their prevalence in recent years. A hit of meth costs $300 to $400 here, but suboxone, which is not hard to hide, is so readily available that sometimes a week’s worth of the drug can be purchased for as little as $70, according to a couple people I surveyed.
“It’s everywhere,” said Kurtis Thompson, who has been incarcerated since 2002. “When I first arrived at the prison, two weeks in, somebody approached me and asked if I wanted to get high. I paused, because my body craved it. It made me feel guilty and anxious.”
Thompson used drugs, primarily methamphetamine, off and on for 19 years before his incarceration.
“When I’m high, I am a different person,” Thompson said. “In prison it is harder not to use, because it can be an escape from reality.”
Unintended consequences
Oregon Department of Corrections Chief of Security Brian Stephen told me the mail changes were intended to reduce “opportunities to conceal illicit substances in the mail.”
But there is no data on how effective these practices have been. That’s because denied mail — which includes cardstock, pages with crayon or marker on them, and both colored envelopes and security envelopes patterned to prevent identity theft — is not tested for illicit substances to save time and resources.
Stephen said mail is accepted, rejected or refused.
Staff can reject mail after they open it to determine it violates a rule. In these cases, the incarcerated person is notified their mail has been rejected.
More often, however, mail is refused. If mailroom staff suspect a piece of mail violates the rule, they can give it back to the delivery service unopened. When mail is refused, staff do not have to notify the incarcerated recipient, Stephen said.
Since the rule change, I’ve had several important pieces of mail refused, including school loan statements from the U.S. Department of Education, educational materials from correspondence programs, and my credit report.
Each time, I was not notified.
My mail was denied because it arrived in security envelopes. I expected to receive mail from these organizations and when I did not, I had a family member contact each sender. To navigate the inconvenient rule, I now have mail sent to family instead. They repackage it in a DOC-approved envelope and forward it to me.
Is digital mail the answer?
In June, prison administrators issued a survey asking for our opinions on switching to digital mail. The survey implied incarcerated people in Oregon would be issued a digital tablet to review scanned mail, along with gaining access to music to buy and movies to rent.
Stephen Cook, strategic initiatives project manager for the Oregon DOC communications office, said that the current contract for tablets and phones is up for renegotiations this year — hence the survey exploring various options. If the department decides to switch to digitally scanned mail or photocopied physical mail, Cook told me the change would not happen when the new contract begins in 2026.
“Any change involving a move to electronic mail would require [new] infrastructure,” Cook said.
More and more prisons across the country are scanning mail. Proponents say it reduces drugs and contraband in facilities.
But research from Prison Policy Initiative indicated that some state prison systems — Pennsylvania, Missouri, Virginia and New Mexico — actually saw an increase in positive drug tests or overdoses after introducing digital mail. Researchers did not say that the new mail policies caused this increase, but pointed out that switching to digital mail does not guarantee a reduction of drugs in prisons.
Something needs to be done
In general, drug use in prison has been on the rise over the last couple decades. Between 2001 and 2018, deaths in state prisons caused by drugs or alcohol jumped by 611%, according to federal statistics.
In conversations I had for this story, both staff and incarcerated people agreed that we should keep drugs away.
“Getting high in prison is dangerous for the user, other incarcerated people and the staff,” Thompson said.
Tye Stewart, assistant superintendent of security at my prison, has decades of experience preventing the flow of contraband and drugs. He told me drugs create a black-market economy that often leads to assaults, extortion and overdoses. More importantly, drugs in prisons can make it difficult for incarcerated people to maintain sobriety and focus on rehabilitation.
“The presence of illicit drugs in correctional facilities is a detriment to everyone,” Stewart said.
I don’t know if the mail rule has stymied the flow of drugs into the prison. I don’t know if digital mail would get at the root of the problem either. But as we get closer to the holidays, I do know I will miss my mom’s loopy cursive handwriting on a Christmas card.