Nevada Board Backs Scanned Inmate Mail to Curb Prison Drug Smuggling

The Nevada Board of Prison Commissioners has cleared the state Department of Corrections to build out a system that replaces physical letters sent to people in prison with scanned copies delivered to tablets, officials said this week, arguing that drug-soaked paper is driving overdoses and violence behind bars.

The change is not final. It moves Nevada toward the arrangement New York adopted in 2021 — a policy followed there by years of rising overdose responses, according to prison data compiled by the Correctional Association of New York. Nevada would also be buying drug-detection scanners for its legal mail with state opioid settlement funds, a detail that puts the plan at the intersection of two budgets: corrections and addiction response.

What the corrections department is proposing

Under the plan, most incoming mail would be opened, scanned and delivered electronically, with the originals handled only by staff. Corrections officials told KTNV that substances have been smuggled into Nevada facilities through paper mail in recent years, contributing to overdoses and violence and creating safety problems for correctional staff.

Director James Dzurenda said every incarcerated person already has access to a tablet and that the scans will not cost families, friends or inmates anything. Legal mail would still reach recipients as physical documents, but only after passing through drug-detection scanners. Those scanners, he said, are being paid for with the state's opioid settlement money.

Dzurenda also outlined accommodations meant to soften the policy. The department is negotiating with a third-party company that families could use to order printed photographs for someone in prison, and people in custody will be allowed to keep drawings made by family members during in-person visits.

"While there may be other unintended impacts of this new process, I am committed to addressing those unintended consequences as they arise to ensure that offenders and their families are not negatively impacted by those things," Dzurenda said. "But understanding those realities do not change the necessity of taking these steps and, in doing so, will undoubtedly save lives."

A 2023 law — and the study it required

Nevada's ability to make the change rests on Assembly Bill 121, signed in 2023, which requires prisons to provide physical and original copies of mail to incarcerated people. Dzurenda said the statute permits a policy change if the department conducts a study finding that handing over originals endangers inmates or staff, and if the Board of Prison Commissioners signs off.

That study is the point of contention. In April, the department proposed restricting mail to address what it described as a drug surge. In July, the advocacy groups Return Strong and the Fines and Fees Justice Center challenged the department's research linking physical mail to spikes in drug-related violence, arguing the evidence did not support the conclusion officials were drawing from it.

Advocates say the scanners get it wrong

Formerly incarcerated people and family advocates told KTNV the case for the policy is weaker than the state suggests, and that the technology doing the screening produces false positives that fall hardest on the people inside.

Melanie Oaks, who spent 14 years at the Florence McClure Women's Correctional Center, described what would be lost. Cards, drawings and photographs from family members mattered more than anything else, she said, and the ones from her small children were the ones she kept closest.

"Those drawings gave me a sense of being a part of my children's lives," Oaks said. "I felt connected. My children felt connected. It helped us maintain our bond with each other."

Laurie Beecher-Valenzuela, a volunteer with Return Strong, said her son was written up over a piece of mail that staff believed contained an unauthorized substance. The mail, she said, was a Valentine's card from her. By the next day, she said, the number of people caught up in the incident had grown, and she believes it eventually reached about 20 — all with the same write-up, and all losing their jobs and housing as a result. After Return Strong's executive director asked the department to review the write-ups, she said, all of them were found not guilty.

"What's that saying?" Beecher-Valenzuela said. "Staff and scanners get it wrong, and that is one incident. Should we multiply that rate and apply it to all facilities to decide how many times they're wrong?"

The structure of the plan — restricted mail, scanners at the door, naloxone on hand for the overdoses that keep happening anyway — echoes the New York experience documented in September, when corrections data showed prison staff administered the overdose-reversal drug 51 percent more often in 2025 than the year before despite a physical mail ban in place since 2021.

What still has to happen

The mail policy cannot take effect on the board's word alone. According to the board, the change requires approval from the Legislative Commission, which is expected to meet in December. Until then, the department is finalizing vendor agreements and the terms under which photographs and children's drawings move through a system designed to keep paper out.