I am writing to let you know that I received your mailing today, unopened and un-searched. Looks like your [censorship protest] letter did the trick. Now that it has been demonstrated that my mail is indeed being censored, I cannot help but wonder what else has been sent to me and refused by the institution's mailroom. I receive several newsletters which tend to arrive somewhat less than regularly... I have also been waiting for many months to hear from the publishers of material which could arguably be described as subversive; by extension I must now assume that there are other cases of this prison's arbitrary censorship policies depriving me of literature which I legally have the right to receive.
I was not notified of the refusal of your earlier mailing to me so I can expect that this was not the first instance [of censorship.] I am very pleased that your tenacity and sense of justice enabled me to become apprised of the mailroom situation here at this facility. I am willing to fight my own legal battles but I need a place to start; I can't very well combat censorship unless and until I can discern what is being censored from what has merely failed to arrive for other reasons. Hopefully, working together, we can effect a change in the repressive conditions extant at this facility.
- a California prisoner, Vacaville, November 2003
MIM adds: This prisoner is referring to the protest letter we sent to the mailroom and warden of California Medical Facility in Vacaville after the Prison returned the standard introductory form letter we sent to this prisoner, stamped "refused/unapproved mail." As a part of our Prisoners Legal Clinic we provide our comrades behind bars with the tools to fight censorship and other repression in the legal system. This prisoner was sent our guide to fighting censorship in prison. A jailhouse lawyer in California recently put together a guide to fighting censorship in California prisons which we will be distributing in that state.
These battles can be won, but they require lots of hard work from behind the bars filing out all the needed paperwork and following the administrative and legal steps. At the same time we need people on the outside to write letters of protest and call the prison to put pressure on them to stop the censorship. We still have not received a response from the warden so we can not assume the censorship has ended. Protest letters can be sent to:
Warden Teresa A. Schwartz
PO Box 2000
Vacaville, CA 95696