What Gets Your Mail Destroyed: Muhlenberg County Jail's Mail Rules

Muhlenberg County Jail only accepts mail within a specific size range. Your envelope and contents must be no larger than 8 1/2" x 11" (standard letter size) and no smaller than 3 1/2" x 5" (postcard size). Anything outside those dimensions risks rejection.

Thickness matters too. Mail can't be thicker than light card stock, and it has to feed through a sheet-fed scanner. Extra layers, heavy cardstock, or anything bulky? Assume it won't make it through.

Prohibited Contents Destroyed

• ✓ Cash, checks, money orders, or any other form of currency
• ✓ Stamps
• ✓ Blank envelopes
• ✓ Stationery

Content can get mail destroyed - not just contraband. Letters containing threats of physical harm, details about criminal activity, plans to smuggle contraband, or information meant to help with escape attempts or other rule violations will be destroyed rather than delivered.

Certain materials are off-limits entirely. Internet printouts, colored pages, and provocative material will be destroyed. Trying to share an article, a social media post, or anything printed from a website? That's exactly the kind of thing that gets your entire mailing tossed.

Prohibited Attachments and Decorations

• ✓ Address labels
• ✓ Stickers
• ✓ Homemade cards
• ✓ Musical cards
• ✓ Non-white envelopes or paper
• ✓ Paintings
• ✓ Tracing paper
• ✓ Pages from coloring books
• ✓ Drawings in colored ink, marker, crayon, or glitter
• ✓ Raised decorations
• ✓ Paint
• ✓ White out
• ✓ Glue
• ✓ Any other liquid form

Your mail will likely be opened, inspected, and possibly read. The jail checks for contraband and screens for anything that violates facility rules.

Mail that violates the guidelines gets destroyed - not returned. A few exceptions go back as "return to sender": legal mail, certified mail requiring an inmate signature, and anything that arrives with postage due.

Practical Tips to Prevent Destruction

• ✓ Put a clear return address on the envelope
• ✓ Keep mail within the allowed size range: no larger than 8 1/2" x 11" and no smaller than 3 1/2" x 5"
• ✓ Keep it thin (no thicker than light card stock)
• ✓ Make sure everything can run through a sheet-fed scanner (avoid anything bulky or layered)

• ✓ Skip stickers, address labels, raised decorations, glue, white out, paint, and anything with liquid
• ✓ Don’t send homemade or musical cards, or anything on non-white paper/envelopes
• ✓ Avoid colored-ink drawings, coloring-book pages, tracing paper, paintings, glitter, marker, or crayon
• ✓ Don’t include internet printouts, colored pages, or provocative material
• ✓ Keep out stamps, blank envelopes, and stationery
• ✓ Never put cash, checks, money orders, or any kind of currency in the envelope