People in prison depend on the mailroom as their most valuable and accessible source of current news, external resources and connections with loved ones.

Unfortunately mailroom staff don’t prioritize the distribution of mail at the same level as incarcerated residents, this breeds frustration that highlights prisoners’ use of the term “snail mail”.

Even moreso then the impact of mailing delays are the negative impact of mailroom censorship. People in prison are often met with mail rejection forms in response to letters sent to them that prison staff have identified to be threatening or otherwise inappropriate.

In some cases people in prison may recieve a excerpt, cliped portion or scanned copy of the mail sent to them as seen below:

Due to the nature of the work of SawariMedia our correspondence is often met with censorship:

With reasons ranging from the perspective of our advocacy

Other reasons, reject the inclusion of pictures

Mailed from MODOC

We’ve also supplied our subscribers with different types of publications including newsletters, calendars as well as books:

Mailed from SCI Forest

Another unique reason behind the delay of subscribers receiving our mailings includethe impact of Transfers, when an incarcerated person is moved from one facility to another, as a result their personal belongings and mailings can become lost in the shuffle:

Mailed from California State Prison - Lancaster

Different facilities find creative ways to censor mailings for countless reasons, this reader describes, “regular mail takes about 3 weeks to reach me. This facility likes to play games with the mail”

Mailed from Chippewa Correctional Facility

A three week waiting time for domestic mail would be ridiculous if that waiting time was enforced on any other group, however people in prison in Michigan’s Upper Penninsula often feel like they’re in another country being 6-8hrs away from the areas where their families live. Another mailing from Chippewa demonstrates this below:

Mailed from Chippewa Correctional Facility

Potential for being censored within the prison, isn’t limited to snail mail (letters sent in the post), with often the same corrections officers managing postal mail as digital mail, the mailroom becomes a strict bottleneck for new information. This became a signifance problem during SawariMedia’s prisoner election participation programming

Mailed from Baraga Maximum Correctional Facility