PADOC or Pennsylvania Department of Corrections uses Smart Communications as their third party that can help family and friends to be connected with the inmates. As explained on the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections site, Smart Communications is the DOC’s third-party mail vendor so that all general incoming correspondence must be sent to the vendor.
The address is:
Smart Communications/ PA DOC
Inmate Name/ Inmate Number
Institution
PO Box 33028
St Petersburg, Florida 33733
You may wonder what the general incoming correspondence means. Those are greeting cards, letters, pictures, children’s drawings and many more, but it is not limited to them. If a family member or friend wants to send a mail to an inmate, they need to include a full return address with their first and last name and also the full and correct name of the inmate and the inmate number.
It is important for you to note that Smart Connections is not able to process any materials that are bound or open such as a book. If the materials that you send are bound, they will be rejected.
When someone sends a mail to Smart Communications for an inmate and then the mail arrives at Smart Communications, the mail will be opened and then it will be scanned into an electronic document. After that, in the facility mailroom, the electronic document will be available to be printed. The mail will be printed and then it will be sent to the inmate by the facility mailroom.
On the PADOC site, it is also explained that all general incoming correspondence that is sent to Smart Communications is printed on 8 ½ by 11 paper. It is better for you to send a mail which is no longer than 8 ½ by 11 for getting the best results as recommended by the DOC. And it is important for you to note that, if you send books or parts of books through regular mail, they will not be printed or sent to inmates.
How about sending photographs? It can also be sent to Smart Communications as the Pennsylvania DOC’s third-party mail vendor. The address is the same as explained above. When you send photographs, you have to enter a full return address along with your first and last name as the sender on the envelope. In addition, it also must be completed with the full and correct inmate name and the inmate number on the envelope.
When the mail that contains photographs arrives at Smart Communications, then it will be opened and scanned into an electronic document. And then, it will be available to the facility mailroom to be printed. The mail that contains photographs will be printed and after being printed, they will be delivered to the inmate by the facility mailroom.
Above, you have read that DOC recommends you to send a mail which is no longer than 8 ½ by 11 paper. How about photographs? Is there a limitation for this? Yes, there is. Per mailing, you are only permitted to send up to 25 photos. If you send more than this number, the photos will be confiscated. If in the photos there is nudity or sexual material, as specified in Section 2 of the DC-ADM 803, Inmate Mail and Incoming Publications Procedures Manual, the photos will be prohibited.
That’s all the information that I got from the website of Pennsylvania Department of Corrections about sending mail and photographs through Smart Communications. For more information about the services offered by Smart Communications in the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections, you are able to contact Pennsylvania Department of Corrections.
A bookworm and researcher especially related to law and citizenship education. I spend time every day in front of the internet and the campus library.
