Email to MCSD prisoners

Did you know that you can send email to prisoners and detainees at the McHenry County Jail? No? You didn't?

Prisoners can receive e-mail, but you'll never know it from the information on the Sheriff's Department website. If you go to www.mchenrysheriff.org or take the long way through the County's website at co.mchenry.il.us, you'll see a long section under Corrections/Jail that describes how to send written communications to prisoners.

But there is an easier, faster way, and it's much better for cost containment at the Jail. Only it is not publicized. You must know the inmate's "number", so get that from him or her, or call the jail for the number.

Then go to www.icsletters.com and set up an account. It's quick and easy. Fund it with a small deposit, charged to your debit or credit card, to cover the cost of sending the email message to an inmate. The cost is $0.50/page for up to 2,500 characters, which is a pretty long message. A counter on the webpage will show you the count of letters typed in your message.

After you send your message, it will be routed to personnel at the McHenry County Jail. There, they will read it before printing and delivering it to the inmate. (Leave out the parts about springing the prisoner with a helicopter escape...)

The cost savings to the Sheriff's Department are sufficient to encourage, not discourage, email to inmates. There is obviously no handling of incoming mail. No envelope to be delivered from the Mailroom to the Jail. No envelope of which to be suspicious (what's that little white powder in the envelope? drugs? Anthrax? flour? sugar?). No unsealing or slitting of the envelope. No testing of the paper for contraband. No confiscation or discarding of contraband enclosed in the envelope.

All that for the cost to the jail of $0.02-0.03 to print a page of email. And even that cost could be reimbursed, probably, out of the Inmate Profit Account, which might still have a $70,000 balance.

When I am elected Sheriff on November 2, this will change. The Jail will inform the public how to send email to prisoners and detainees. The jail will take advantage of cost-savings and encourage the use of e-mail to inmates over "mailed" communications.