How Pueblo County Detention Center's Digital Mail Scanning Works — what happens to originals and what’s exempt

Since April 20, 2022, all U.S. Mail sent to someone at Pueblo County Detention Center gets converted to digital format. The facility scans your letters and photos, then delivers them electronically. Your loved one views them on a screen - they never hold the paper you sent.

Which Items Scanned

• ✓ Letters sent through U.S. Mail
• ✓ Photos included in the envelope
• ✓ Drawings included in the envelope

Once scanned, the originals are destroyed. That one-of-a-kind photo, your child's drawing, the handwritten note - they'll only exist as digital copies after processing. Don't send anything irreplaceable unless you're okay with it being scanned and shredded.

Legal mail skips the scanning process entirely. If what you're sending qualifies as legal correspondence, it won't go through the digital conversion - it's handled separately from regular U.S. Mail.

Parcels shipped directly from a publisher are also exempt. So if you're ordering books or magazines to be sent straight from the publisher, those won't be scanned - they're treated differently than items you mail yourself in a regular envelope.

You'll likely need the person's booking number when addressing mail. Find it on the sheriff's website using the Inmate Lookup page, then include it on your envelope.

Want to skip the mail altogether? Pueblo County points families to the GettingOut app for sending digital messages directly. This is a separate option from the facility's mail scanning - your message goes straight through without any physical mail involved.

Common Questions

• ✓ Can I get the original letter, photo, or drawing back after it’s scanned? - No. The facility states originals are destroyed after scanning.
• ✓ Is legal mail scanned into digital format? - No. Legal mail is excluded from the digital scanning process.