Corrections_Today_Fall_2025_Vol.87_No.3

News&Views

my job as a warehouse specialist working in the Central Utah Cor rectional Facility (CUCF) mailroom is intercepting and solving coded messages in offender mail. 4 I’ve worked for CUCF in Gunni son, Utah, for over six years. Almost five of those years have been in the mailroom. Inmate mail is important to the offender population. In my experience, 90% to 95% of incoming inmate mail is healthy, supportive and loving communications. Fam ily and friends keep in contact with their loved ones via uplifting and encouraging letters. The other 5% to 10% is the reason the mail process at both Utah prisons will have been modified by the time this edition of Corrections Today is printed. 5 Unfortunately, mail is only one of several ways contraband is introduced into the facility. We’ve caught letters that tested positive for methamphetamine, fentanyl, mor phine and other opioids. Heroin was discovered in between the layers of a photograph. Meth and Suboxone packages were confiscated in an audio-book on a USB device from a compromised employee of the State Library. Illicit substances have been discovered in the spines of physical books, newspapers and magazines. While incoming items present vital concerns, sometimes outgoing com munications are just as important. When offenders send out mail, not all of it is healthy, positive and loving in nature. Attempting to disguise their secret plans, inmates write letters and messages in codes. Utilizing letters of the alphabet, numbers, symbols, or a combination of these elements, the inmate substi tutes different characters for letters,

thus creating his own alphabet. An alphabet that makes no sense to the untrained eye. Just like the messages produced by the Enigma machine, these coded communications are deliberate at tempts to get a message out of the prison, and they are meant to be understood only by the sender and receiver. At first glance, these ciphers may intimidate and overwhelm the reader and seem impossible to solve. Utilizing letters of the alphabet, numbers, symbols, or a combination of these elements, the inmate substitutes different characters for letters, thus creating his own alphabet. An alphabet that makes no sense to the untrained eye. Solving the mystery When I saw my first coded mes sage in the mailroom, I knew it was something I wanted to solve. I knew I could do it. I refused to let the in mate author of the message outsmart me. I wanted to know what the letter said and was determined to solve it. By encoding the message, he knew the content of what he was sending was deceitful. Yet, he deliberately made a key, wrote a coded letter and attempted to mail it. So, this behavior

is not by accident; it’s deliberate. In the discovery of the jumbled mess, I wanted to know what he was trying to tell his cohort/family/friend. Like the workers at Bletchley House, I wanted to solve the mystery. Along with two male correctional officers who screened the inmate outgoing mail, I wanted to give this a try. The two officers talked to each other like they were seasoned veterans at solving these crazy coded messages. I listened as their conversation revolved around how inmates attempt these actions and how important it was to figure out their criminal intentions. I knew if the officers could solve these mes sages, so could I. For days, I worked on this first puzzle. I chipped away at differ ent combinations of letters. I made errors. I got frustrated and started over again and again and again . Af ter a few days, the right combination of letters produced a domino effect, and words began to appear. I found the solution and couldn’t wait to share my findings with the two cor rectional officers who would be in the mailroom the following morning. “Did you get it?” I asked the first officer when he came in. He smiled and nodded. When the next officer came in, I asked, “Did you get it?” He nodded as well. We compared notes, and all three of us came up with the same solution. At that moment, I knew solving coded messages interested me, and it was something I could do. We don’t get these cryptic messages often. They appear oc casionally but when they do, they always create excitement, followed

Corrections Today | Fall 2025

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