Below is a protest letter MIM sent to WSP. Please send protest letters to the address on the letter.
Facility Superintendent/Field Administrator
Washington State Penitentiary
1313 N. 13th Ave.
Walla Walla, WA 99362-8817
To Whom It May Concern:
MIM Distributors received a Mail Rejection Notice for our newspaper, MIM Notes, which was sent to [X]. The rejection notice states that the "Publication that is deemed to be a threat to legitimate penological objectives." The notice states that we may appeal this decision by submitting a written complaint to the facility superintendent/field administrator. Please consider this letter a formal appeal.
You do not have any legal justification for censoring MIM Notes. According to Procunier v. Martinez, the Supreme Court upholds the right of prisoners to receive mail, regardless of the prison official's opinion of the mail content, as long as there are no legitimate restrictions from the prison related to correctional purposes. The form from your institution does not provide any evidence to support your claim that it is a threat to legitimate penological objectives. In fact, under the "comments" section of the form it states that you should "give a brief but specific description of reasons for rejection" which is not done. Instead it only states that two issues of MIM Notes are being rejected.
Our material helps prisoners to educate themselves and prepare for a productive return to general society. We repeatedly received feedback from prisoners stating that we help them to learn to stop fighting one another and instead to help educate one another. MIM Notes is a political newspaper covering events in this country and throughout the world. MIM does not advocate the violation of any Federal or State laws and does not advocate the violation of the rules of any correctional institution. In fact, MIM Notes explicitly encourages prisoners to follow rules, to avoid fights and confrontations with other inmates and/or staff. Additionally, prisoners reading MIM Notes and other material sent from MIM Distributors typically work harder than other prisoners to stay out of situations where altercations might occur because MIM Distributors works with prisoners to become productive and educated individuals.
We are pursuing this matter because we believe that prisoners should be allowed to receive and learn from educational material. We realize you may not agree with the content of the newspaper's analysis, but that is not a legal justification for censoring this newspaper.
Sincerely,
MIM Distributors
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