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Adopted Prisoner Penpals |  |
UPDATE ON PRISONERS' LEGAL BATTLE
OVER PENPAL WEB PAGES
Chicago Tribune, July 13, 2003:
"....Bans on contact facilitated by Web sites raises the hackles of the American Civil Liberties Union, which contends that prisoners have a legal right to receive mail, whatever its origin.
"It's a well-established right that prisoners can both send and receive mail," says David Fathi, an attorney with the ACLU's National Prison Project. If prison administrators are worried about the content of mail generated via Web sites, Fathi notes it's also well-established that jail officials "have the right to read the mail and make sure it doesn't contain material that would pose a risk to prison security."
In May, a federal judge in Arizona struck down a state law that allowed corrections officials to punish inmates who had contact with Web sites or had their names mentioned on Web sites -- even if a site listed a prisoner's name without his knowledge or permission. Last year, a district court judge ruled against the California Department of Corrections, which tried to ban any kind of Internet-based material from reaching prisoners at the Pelican Bay high-security prison.
In the Arizona case, the ACLU sued the state on behalf of several prisoners-rights groups, including the Canadian Coalition Against the Death Penalty, which allows death-row prisoners to maintain free Web pages.
CCADP director Tracy Lamourie says maintaining contact with the outside world via Web sites can benefit both the prisoner and the prison community and could prevent violence...
"If they have no contact" with the outside world, Lamourie notes, inmates can become despondent and more apt to lash out. "I've heard of many cases where prisoners were pushed to the point that they would have done something [violent], but they didn't, because they were still connected to reality by [contact with] someone out there who cares."
Like many other state sites, the New York State Department of Corrections Web page allows Internet surfers to look up the records of inmates in the system. That feature gets a million hits a month, according to department spokesman Jim Flateau. "We can make the information available to the public," Flateau says. "Whether they utilize it is up to them. . . ."
AmFOR SUPPORTS INCARCERATED ADOPTEES'
LEGAL BATTLE OVER INMATES ON THE WEB
Civil liberties vs. prison "security"
AmFOR has been helping to give a voice to tens of thousands of adoptees and parents since 1989. The Adopted Prisoner Penpals pages contain the type of crime for which each incarcerated adoptee was convicted, the sentence and earliest release date of any. The Adopted Prisoner Penpals pages are intended to put a human face on these adoptees and enable them to tell their stories--which often reveal how they were abused by those entrusted to protect them -- their adopters, the adoption system, legal system and prison system.
AmFOR provides them with web pages, free of charge, because these adoptees would otherwise be hidden from society -- not only because their birth records were "legally" falsified and sealed, but also because special interests that profit from family dismemberment and adoption, do not want it known that many adoptees have negative outcomes.
These adoptees usually have no outside contact since incarceration due to being abandoned by their adopters and others and may not have adequate legal representation. They acknowledge their crimes which are disclosed in their penpal profiles. AmFOR's "disclaimer" advises that anyone corresponding with a prisoner must be over 18 years of age and suggests caution about disclosing personal information.
Many of the incarcerated adoptees featured have heard from university researchers, writers, forensic profilers and others interested in their issues as well as from ministers and ordinary people who merely offer friendship through correspondence. All have received some degree of free family search assistance from AmFOR, if requested. Web pages for solicting penpals via such web pages, or deletion of their web pages, must be requested in writing by the incarcerated adoptee directly and according to AmFOR's "How To Submit" verifiable information requirements.
