Citing drugs at Rikers, NYC to ban incarcerated people from getting letters in the mail

Overdose deaths are skyrocketing in New York City jails, and the correction commissioner says banning physical letters is a way to stop it. 

Commissioner Louis Molina said at a city council hearing Tuesday that fentanyl-soaked children’s drawings, love letters, prayer schedules, and T-shirts have been shipped to detainees. To address that he plans to hire a vendor to scan letters and distribute them to detainees digitally on tablets. Molina also said he may restrict packages so they only come from approved vendors.

"Books are for reading, not for lacing with fentanyl," he said.

Such restrictions would be similar to the practice in the state correctional system. But city council members were skeptical that most drugs come through the mail, and believe that correction officers must be screened as aggressively as visitors to keep them from bringing in drugs to sell to detainees.