How do ppl working in jails sort through all the mail and give the correct envelope to everyone?

Question

obviously by the adress n everything else but like there must be tons of letters...do they have postal workers that drop the mail to the correct person...im finding that hard to believe how that works...

Answer 1

My mom's friend is a mail sorter at Brushy Mountain State Prison in Morgan County Tennessee. What she does is opens the envelopes, makes sure that there's nothing illegal in it, and puts the letter back in the envelope. I assume there's other mail sorters that take the inmates mail to them.  

Answer 2

Every inmate has an inmate number. This is assigned upon intake and each person has their own number. You could compare it to a social security number.

When a letter is sent in, it is opened and inspected for contraband and then placed back inside the same envelope with a staple to keep it all together.

The letter is routed to the inmate by using the inmate number. We look it up by computer, which is updated daily, and send it to the unit he is locked at.

By using an individual inmate number, it makes duplication or mistakes impossible. If numbers are transposed by accident and the inmate cannot be verified/located, the letter is returned to the sender with a stamped notation "cannot be located". This is particularly useful when an inmate has a relatively common name.

Best of luck and I hope this is useful