What Happens to Your Letter After You Mail It: How TDCJ's Digital Mail Works
If you're used to sending paper letters straight to a unit, TDCJ's digital mail rollout changes what happens after you drop your envelope in the mailbox. Here's how the process works at the Middleton Unit — what gets scanned to a tablet, and what still needs to go directly to the unit.
TDCJ moved the Middleton Unit (along with other units) to a digital mail platform on September 6, 2023. The goal: reduce dangerous contraband by routing incoming personal mail through a central processing step before it reaches anyone inside.
- Send incoming personal mail to the Digital Mail Processing Center - Instead of mailing personal letters directly to the unit, you send them to the processing center.
- Your mail is sorted and scanned - The processing center sorts the mail and scans it.
- The scanned mail is uploaded to a secure tablet - After scanning, the letter is uploaded to the inmate’s secure tablet.
- Photos and messages are scanned in color and can be saved - Messages and photos are scanned in color, and the inmate can save them on the tablet so they stay permanently available to look back on.
If the person you’re writing to doesn’t have a tablet, they aren’t shut out of the process. They’ll receive black-and-white printed copies of their scanned correspondence instead.
- ✓ Send greeting cards to the Digital Mail Processing Center.
- ✓ Send photos to the Digital Mail Processing Center.
Some mail still bypasses digital processing and should go directly to the unit. This includes legal mail, media mail, and books, magazines, packages, or subscriptions from verified publishers.
Good to know: The process for outbound mail (letters sent out by inmates) has not changed under the digital mail rollout.
Questions about TDCJ's digital mail platform? Contact Securus Customer Service at (800) 844-6591. And if you're wondering whether this affects how your loved one sends letters out - it doesn't. Outbound mail procedures haven't changed.
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