Corrections_Today_Fall_2025_Vol.87_No.3

VIEW FROM THE LINE

VIEW FROM THE LINE

Solving coded messages in inmate mail A woman’s success in a correctional setting — a personal narrative By Sherry Frasier

– Bletchley House. – Enigma. – World War II. What do these three have in common? Coded messages. D uring WWII, outside sion. Their mission was to decode the Nazis’ encoded communications. Communications about strategies, logistics and plans were encrypted by a machine the Germans made, which they aptly titled Enigma. The definition of enigma is mysterious or difficult, which is exactly what this machine was. It looked like a typewriter, but the keys did not correspond to what appeared on the keyboard like a traditional typewriter or computer keyboard. Wheels and devices inside the machine replaced the correct letters with wrong letters. The result produced a deliberate jumbled, inco herent mess meant only for Hitler’s commanders and decision-makers. 1 The folks at Bletchley House, later London, a group of people performed a clandestine mis

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renamed Bletchley Park, decoded this impossible machine and helped secure an Allied victory over The Third Reich. 2 What does Bletchley House and Enigma have to do with working in a prison? The business of encrypting mes sages has filtered into the prison population. 3 It’s a covert strategy

inmates employ in their nefarious attempts to either discuss gang activity or to try to convince oth ers to smuggle substances into the prison population. Although the content of the messages is nowhere on the same evil level as those from Nazi Germany almost a hundred years ago, the motive is the same: to disguise their real message. As a female employed by the Utah Department of Corrections, one of the most satisfying facets of

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