Nearly three months after suspected drug-soaked correspondence sickened state correctional workers, Berks County officials are taking action to ensure that never happens at the local facility. And that means changing the way inmates receive some of their mail.

Officials announced that Berks County Prison inmates soon will no longer receive paper mail from their family and friends.

On Thursday, the county commissioners unanimously approved a resolution to execute a one-year contract with TextBehind, a company in Baltimore County, Md., that specializes in inmate communications, to screen and process mail sent to the inmates at no cost to the county.

“This is a major issue,” said Commissioners Chairman Christian Y. Leinbach. “Mail has increasingly become one of the ways in which people are smuggling drugs into prisons and it has been making workers sick just by handling this toxic material.”

The move means that inmates at the Bern Township prison and their families will have to use the online messaging service if they want to stay in touch. The price to send messages will be 50 cents – about the cost of a stamp – for each message.

“The good thing about TextBehind is that it takes my staff out of the picture so they don’t get exposed to any kind of harmful narcotics,” said Chief Deputy Warden Jeffrey R. Smith. “While we’ve never had any reported cases of that happening here, we’re trying to be as proactive as possible.”

This change, however, will not affect the way legal mail is delivered and processed at the facility. Smith said legal mail will continue to be opened in front of inmates and then inspected at the prison.

How TextBehind works

TextBehind users outside the prison will be able to send text messages to their incarcerated loved ones through the website or smartphone application, according to the company website. There’s also a doodle function, designed with youngsters in mind, that allows them to send digital drawings.

After users outside the prison send their digital messages to TextBehind, the company prints paper copies and mails them to the prison through the U.S. Postal Service. The TextBehind website says all messages will be delivered to the prison within 24 hours.

When an inmate wants to reply to a message through TextBehind, the prison will mail the paper copy to the company, which will then digitize and send the message to the intended receiver.

Inmates are not charged for TextBehind services.

Smith said inmates and their families will receive notification when the service will be available.