Legal Mail vs. Regular Mail: How to Make Sure Important Documents Reach Your Loved One

At Yakima County, "legal mail" isn't just mail about a legal issue. It has to be correspondence to or from specific people or offices - and that's determined by what appears in the mailing address or return address on the envelope. The jail classifies legal mail as correspondence involving courts or court staff, an attorney of record in a filed local, state, or federal case, or established legal organizations that represent incarcerated people (think the ACLU or Disability Rights of Washington). Certain government correspondence also qualifies. This includes mail connected to federal or state officials: the President or Vice President, members of Congress, the U.S. Department of Justice, the Washington State Attorney General's Office, state governors, and state legislators. Mail to or from embassies and consulates counts too. Law enforcement officers acting in their official capacity round out the list. If your envelope doesn't clearly show one of these qualifying senders or recipients in the address, it probably won't be handled as legal mail.

Where you send the envelope depends on what you're mailing. Regular inmate mail goes through a third-party vendor (Securus) and must be mailed to Yakima County's PO Box in Tampa, Florida. Legal mail works differently. Send it directly to the jail at Yakima County Department of Corrections, 111 N Front Street, Yakima, WA 98901. If you're sending court or attorney correspondence and want it treated as legal mail, use the direct jail address and label the envelope correctly - otherwise it might get misrouted.

• ✓ Write “Legal Mail” in the bottom left or bottom right corner of the envelope.
• ✓ Include the inmate’s name and booking (ID) number on the envelope.
• ✓ Use a 6-digit ID number (add a leading 0 at the beginning if you need to make it six digits).
• ✓ Use a white envelope and write a clear return address in pen.

Here's the practical difference: routing. Regular inmate mail travels through Securus and must go to Yakima County's PO Box in Tampa, Florida. That extra step adds processing time before your loved one sees it. Legal mail can go straight to Yakima County Department of Corrections at 111 N Front Street in Yakima. If you're sending documents with deadlines - court notices, filings, attorney correspondence - sending as legal mail to the jail's direct address helps avoid unnecessary detours.

1. Mark it as legal mail - Write “Legal Mail” in the bottom left or bottom right corner of the envelope.
2. Use the correct identifying info - Put the inmate’s name and booking (ID) number on the envelope so it can be matched quickly and correctly.