Postcards from Prison

March 25, 2010— -- Starting April 1, prisoners in a central Florida jail will see big changes in one of the ways they communicate with friends and family.

The Alachua County Jail, which holds 950 inmates, is instituting a new "postcards only" mail policy, which restricts inmates to sending and receiving postcards that meet certain requirements.

It's a major change from the previous policy, which allowed inmates to write full-page letters sealed in envelopes, with no limit on the amount of pages. The only exceptions to this new rule will be privileged or legal mail.

Alachua follows the lead of jails in Arizona, Oregon, Missouri, Michigan, Colorado, Kansas, and other parts of Florida, including the Manatee County Jail, just south of St. Petersburg.

Manatee began a postcards-only policy last June, and spokesman Dave Bristow calls it "a big success.

"It has really cut down on work load, and that's what we were trying to do," Bristow added.

Alachua County spokesman Eugene Morris said the policy will help improve security while saving the jail money.

"We have a concern about contraband being introduced that may be coming through the mail," Morris told ABCNews.com.

Morris said the new policy will speed up the process of sorting through the estimated 400 pieces of mail moving in and out of the jail on any given day.

Despite county officials' satisfaction with the policy, several inmates and their family members are not happy with the restrictions. They say the policy infringes on their First Amendment rights. A group of Manatee County inmates and their families have filed a class-action lawsuit against the jail.

Katherine Earle Yanes, an attorney hired by the families, said the plaintiffs want to end the policy and declare it unconstitutional. Yanes added that they want to "set a precedent so that it would not be able to be instituted at other facilities."

Inmates Challenge Postal Policies

This is not the first time this policy has been challenged in court. In 2007, when a similar policy was instated at the Maricopa County Jail in Arizona, inmates attempted to fight it. In Covell v. Arpaio, the case was dismissed, however, because the inmate, who was representing himself, did not have evidence to support his argument that his First Amendment rights and rights to due process had been violated.

A similar lawsuit is currently pending in Pasco County, Fla. Doug Tobin, a spokesman for the sheriff's office, said the county has made a motion to dismiss the case; a hearing is set for April 12.

Yanes said the Manatee County case has a stronger chance not only because the inmates have legal representation, but also because family members are involved. "In this case, we're talking about not only the rights of the inmates to receive this correspondence, but the rights of the friends and family members who are actually the ones who wish to make this communication," Yanes told ABCNews.com.

Manatee County Jail officials say the policy does not infringe on the inmates' rights. "We still let them have mail," Bristow said. He added that officials actually expected a lawsuit, comparing the mail policy to past instances when they took away television and smoking. "Here we haven't really taken anything away. We've just changed the way they do things," Bristow said.

But Yanes contends that the change from legal paper to postcards keeps inmates and their families from communicating personal things such as photographs of children and deaths in the family. "One of the families of a named representative had a family member who was dying and felt inhibited of being able to communicate that to the inmate," she said.

Alachua County spokesman Morris agreed with Bristow: "We have not taken that right away. Anybody who wants to send and receive mail still has that opportunity."

Morris added that he hopes that, come April, officials will have a greater peace of mind with less contraband coming in to the jail. "If that is no longer a concern, we believe that we are going to have a safer, more secure facility."