Missouri Prison Reform received the following message from a resident of a Missouri prison.
In regards to the mail …
My grandfather passed recently. My brother went to the funeral home website and took a screenshot of his obituary, which he emailed. Our mail room censored it. They said “because screen shots containing text conversations, social media posts, and written correspondence.” Grammar aside, that seemed particularly unfeeling at best.
After spending nearly 23 years in custody, I am admittedly a bit out of touch with things like social media since sites like Facebook and Twitter didn’t exist when I still had access to the internet. That said, I can’t fathom the idea that anybody could mistake an obituary for anything other that what it is. And since six days later, after the funeral, he took a photo of the paper copy, and the mail room didn’t take umbrage with that, I can’t understand the “why” of their earlier censorship.
The other issue I have had directly is in the timeliness. In example, last Thursday, I sent my Brother an email detailing what I quoted above as their reasoning, but that email didn’t go out until this past Monday. While that is not exactly world shattering, it really shouldn’t take longer to send an email than it does to send a letter through regular the post office.
It seems to me that they used to exercise a bit more common sense. It feels as though “sense” is less common around here than in years past … or maybe I am getting older and grumpier. I’ll let you judge that.
