LAS VEGAS (KTNV) — Could changes to mail policies lead to safer conditions in Nevada prisons?
That's what Nevada Department of Corrections officials are currently looking at due to drug-related violence inside those facilities.
"The ink is laced. The envelope is laced," Dshamba Prater, union secretary and retired NDOC employee, told state lawmakers in February. "There's a number of ways that they're getting [drugs] in."
During the last Board of Prison Commissioners meeting, NDOC Director James Dzurenda said in 2025, there were 248 suspected overdose incidents with K2 and spice, which is a synthetic cannabinoid.
Prison officials also previously told us the drugs being supplied to inmates are made of common household items like bug killers and harsh cleaning agents like RAID and Drano.
"While some offenders overdose, lose consciousness, or have extreme behavioral changes — including violence — some receive traumatic brain injuries or die," NDOC officials wrote.
Director Dzurenda added this is what's causing some of the prison staff overtime issues because officers go with the inmates to receive medical treatment.
"Each one goes to the outside hospital to be cleared first. Some remain there for days. Each offender that goes to the outside hospital has to be accompanied with a minimum of two correction officers for the entire time there," Dzurenda explained. "All those correction officers are considered on overtime since there's no official post for transportation to outside hospitals for that type of emergency."
Assembly Bill 121, which was signed into law during the 2023 Nevada Legislative Session, requires the NDOC to provide incarcerated persons with original, physical copies of mail under certain circumstances. Dzurenda said staff have been doing their best to combat mail being laced with drugs.
"NDOC just deployed a mail drug detection scanner at each facility's mail room. That, we started impelementing in December of 2025," Dzurenda said. "These mail scanners go through the mail that comes into the facility, the U.S. mail, and scans them for potential for any materials or any drug that comes in the mail system. Some of that mail, or most of that mail, is not detected by the human eye for drugs. The drugs are for K2 and spice. [They] are actually infused into the lettering of the mail, which becomes the obstacle that corrections has with identifying the drugs coming in through the U.S. mail."
While that is a helpful tool, Dzurenda explained only 20% of U.S. mail coming in can actually be scanned by those systems.
NDOC officials are hosting a public workshop to discuss changing prison mail policies from inmates getting physical copies of their mail to getting digital scans of their mail, which would be sent to their tablets.
"I meet with every director for the Department of Corrections around the country every six months and I would say at least 90% are digital mail and the ones that aren't digital mail are going to be attempting to do digital mail starting in 2026," Dzurenda said. "We'll have a process for that if it does go digitally."
Some former inmates have voiced a few concerns.
"I do have an issue with requiring mail to go through Viopath because for one letter to be sent, it costs 20 cents plus a $6.90 fee to Viopath. If that fee could be taken care of, then I don't see an issue because I've been negatively impacted through the U.S. mail by all the spice these guys do in prison," said Larry Plumbley, who told the Board of Prison Commissioners that he was incarcerated for 34 years. "I understand the prison's position but you should look at how much it's going to cost the family just to send one letter to the Department of Corrections before this is finalized."
The NDOC is hosting a public workshop to get more public feedback about the proposed changes.
You can read the draft of those proposed changes below.
The workshop has been scheduled for Wednesday, April 22 at 9 a.m. at the State Capitol Building's Guinn Room, which is located at 101 N. Carson Street in Downtown Las Vegas.
If you can't make it to the meeting and would like to listen in, you can call 1-775-321-6111 and enter the meeting ID: 621 762 994#.
You can also submit written comments to the Board of State Prison Commissioners by emailing bopc@doc.nv.gov by 9 p.m. on the day before the workshop. That is to give the board enough time to review your comments. Also, make sure to include the commenter's full name.