Wow, that is dehumanizing. This is the kind of thing that really drives home our Puritan roots. It's like we've decided that merely locking people behind bars isn't good enough, we need to make sure that every moment is hell.

You neglect to mention the inmate has to pay for each scanned card or letter, which most inmates can't afford. And you can't write on it, because it's on a screen, so if you're sending crosswords, the inmate can't do the crossword now, which is very demoralizing so they'll just ask you to stop sending them. There is another service where they can pay an exorbitant fee for a printout though. It's also very difficult to read scanned handwritten letters even if you pay for the printout. Inmates will ask you to stop sending Christmas cards because it's not worth it for you, and it's not worth it for them. It costs them more than what the card & postage cost you. Also the screens are pretty shitty so when they break down, it takes months to get a replacement.

The worst thing is the lies about why they're doing this. They think we're stupid. They don't really care about prisoners getting sick from possible drugs on the letters. If they really cared about this issue they would screen the letters for drugs, which would be easier & cheaper than scanning and reprinting them, or they would provide healthcare in prisons (they don't), or they could even stop corrections employees from bringing in the drugs in the first place.