J. J. Sanders did not work on prisoner-mail policy as an intellectual leader. Like Arizona Governor George Hunt, Sanders was neither a scholar nor a man of high culture. Sanders was Arizona State Prison’s Parole Clerk. He wrote with the operational directness and energy of a hard-working government bureaucrat. The Survey, an early twentieth century “weekly journal of constructive philanthropy,” “an adventure in co-operative journalism,” reported on Sanders’ work. Sanders in that publication expressed himself with earthy directness:

“The abominable rules in force in nearly all American state prisons restricting prisoners’ mail,” says Mr. Sanders, “are a lasting disgrace to our American civilization. As well expect a giant cactus to grow and develop at the north pole as expect men and women to become better citizens in a prison holding to these dark-age customs of restricting the writing and receiving of letters, magazines, periodicals, and newspapers. Cut loose the anchor that binds them to the past and give the man and woman in prison every opportunity to grow and develop.”

Sanders’ focus was getting mail policy changed:

A pamphlet {that Sanders authored} entitled Prisoners’ Mail was sent to governors, senators, congressmen, the President and his cabinet, prison wardens, prison workers, newspapers, magazines and women’s clubs, and is soon to be printed as a Senate document.^

Absent from this list are the sorts of scholarly journals and penological conferences that convened lengthy discussions about the best model for suppressing prisoners’ communications.

Sanders’ publications on prisoner-mail policies generated a small amount of public discussion. The Survey, the weekly general news magazine The Outlook, and the academically oriented Journal of the American Institute of Criminal Law and Criminology reported on Sanders’ survey findings. A prison-reform compilation book published in 1917 included a 1915 Saturday Globe (Utica, NY) editorial describing Sanders’ survey results. That editorial supported prisoner-mail liberalization. The book itself was oriented toward the ideas of Thomas Mott Osborne. Osborne was a leading New York prison reformer of the time. Osborne followed Governor Hunt’s example of spending time in prison in the position of a convict to better understand prison conditions.^ In addition, a diligent and thorough academic, John Lewis Gillin, reported on Saunders’ work in a 1926 volume summarizing knowledge in the disciplines of criminology and penology. Among eight major U.S. newspapers, only one reported or addressed Sanders’ work. That was the Los Angeles Times. It ridiculed Sanders with a satirical article entitled “Angelic Arizona Convicts.” Prisoners’ communication with friends and family has never generated much public discussion. Sanders’ work did not change that communicative reality.

Nonetheless, Sanders’ work seems to have changed prisoner-mail policies. According to an August, 1916 issue of The Survey:

Since Mr. Sanders began his campaign {in early 1913}, the privilege of unlimited daily mail has been granted in Oklahoma, New York, California, Maine and Georgia. Illinois has raised the number of letters prisoners are allowed to write from one every five weeks to one every two weeks. Virginia now allows one letter a month instead of one every two months as before.^

The best evidence of the connection between Sanders’ work and these changes is for New York. An instance of Sanders’ pamphlet Prison Mail includes a paper insert that states (with Sanders’ characteristic style):

Since December 11th, 1914, inmates of New York State prisons may write as many letters as they desire to and may receive a daily newspaper, – EXCEPT an inmate forfeits the mail privilege by misconduct. By ‘EXCEPT FOR MISCONDUCT’ New York State has Burbanked the seeds of the old medieval custom for a future growth more poisonous than before. Arizona does not restrict the mail privileges of an inmate for any cause whatsoever.^

Thomas Mott Osborne became Warden of Sing Sing Prison in New York State on December 1, 1914. Osborne was connected to Hunt and Sanders through his spending time in prison and his 1917 co-authored book.^ Prisoner-mail policies changed more from 1913 to 1916 than they did from 1902 to 1912. Sanders’ work plausibly deserves some credit for the increased pace of prisoner-mail liberalization.

Sanders himself remained at work as a Parole Clerk at Arizona State Prison until his death on December 2, 1931.^ Unlike his near contemporary Henry Martyn Boies, Sanders was not eulogized as a great penologist. But Sanders, like many dedicated government bureaucrats, did important work.