Tracking Prison Censorship in the United States

Assistant Section Chief
Support Services
4260 Mail Service Center
Raleigh, NC 27699-4260

4 November 2014

RE: continued censorship of approved literature

Dear Ms. Bostic,

After writing you in mid-March and mid-May about the censorship of Under Lock & Key 36, you notified MIM Distributors in a June 4 letter that Under Lock & Key 36 will be allowed in North Carolina prisons. When my colleague requested that all copies of this issue of the newsletter be delivered to the prisoners they were mailed to, you informed her that MIM Distributors must resend the newsletters at their own cost. Since then, numerous copies have been resent, and we have confirmed that at least 2 have been censored (see enclosed delivery confirmation).

I am cc'ing the wardens of Scotland Correctional Facility and New Hanover Correctional Center to notify them that their mailroom staff has not been following the decisions of your office. The two prisoners affected are:

WWW ZZZ #AAA
XXX YYY #BBB

We are requesting that your office deliver copies of Under Lock & Key 36 to the prisoners above in order to ensure delivery. We have found in the past that administrative intervention can help remedy these problems at the local level and hope you will assist us in this matter.

Sincerely,

Katy Poole, Acting Correctional Administrator
Scotland Correctional Institution
PO Box 1808
Laurinburg, NC 28353-1808

2 December 2014

RE: censorship of approved literature (follow up)

Dear Ms. Poole,

I received your letter from 18 November responding to my inquiry about the censorship of literature approved by the North Carolina Department of Public Safety. While I appreciate the updated address for the person mentioned in that letter, you did not address my concern about the disappearance of this approved literature in your mailroom. Below is a list of other prisoners who have not received the same approved item, Under Lock & Key Issue 36:

[omitted]

As you can see from the enclosed U.S. Postal Service certified mail receipts, all of these were mailed after your department had approved Under Lock & Key Issue 36. To ensure that your staff was aware of this decision, the newsletters were mailed with copies of the letter from Assistant Section Chief, Cynthia Bostic approving it for receipt by North Carolina prisoners. Yet no one seems to have received it and no one has been notified of any censorship. How is it that this mail was not delivered?

I am requesting that you remedy this situation and ensure that all of the above people receive their copies of Under Lock & Key 36.

Sincerely,

Assistant Section Chief
Support Services
4260 Mail Service Center
Raleigh, NC 27699-4260

2 December 2014

RE: continued censorship of approved literature (follow up)

Dear Ms. Bostic,

I received your letter from 13 November upholding the censorship of Under Lock & Key Issue 39. While I find it regrettable that you objected to the commemoration of those killed and abused by the state of New York in Attica in 1971, I do appreciate the explanation this time and will pass it along to the editor.

I have not received a response from you to my more recent letter regarding the failure of many facilities to deliver an approved issue of ULK, Issue 36. This letter is to follow up on that, as I did receive a response from Katy Poole at Scotland CI, who informed me that Mr. XXX YYY has since left Scotland. She did not address the missing mail. So I am writing again to expand the list of prisoners whose mail has gone missing without explanation from your department.

On July 22, following the notification that ULK 36 was approved by your office, and following your assertion to Ms. Clarke that MIM Distributors must mail new copies of the newsletter to prisoners on their mailing list, new copies of ULK 36 were sent along with the letter of approval from your office to the following prisoners: [omitted]

As you can see, while most of the missing mail was at Scotland CI, this pattern seems to have occurred at a number of facilities. And as noted, the mailroom staff could not plead ignorance to your decision since your letter was mailed along with the newsletters via U.S. Certified Mail. The U.S. Postal Service has confirmed that these newsletters were received at each facility on 25 July. I am reiterating my request for your assistance in assuring that these prisoners receive their newsletters, which have been mailed to them twice now by MIM Distributors. It is evident that intervention is required to enforce the rules at these facilities.

Sincerely,

Assistant Section Chief
Support Services
4260 Mail Service Center
Raleigh, NC 27699-4260

25 December 2014

RE: continued censorship of approved literature (follow up 2)

Dear Ms. Bostic,

I just received your letter dated 5 December, postmarked 15 December addressing the continued censorship of Under Lock & Key 36 at various North Carolina prisons, even after it was approved by your office. To answer your letter, no, you have not addressed my request, which was for you to ensure delivery of said newsletter to the numerous people who have been denied it by your department. I even suggested a means by which to carry this out. In other states when mailroom staff continue to throw out mail we have succeeded in getting mail delivered by having it handled by administrative personnel such as yourself. Instead, you continue to assert that the mail was not refused.

In my previous letter (2 December 2014) I included documentation from the United States Postal Service showing that the newsletters, with copies of your approval letter, addressed to at least 13 people were delivered to 6 different facilities. Am I to believe that the USPS is lying and that NCDPS staff, who have repeatedly not delivered mail from MIM Distributors are telling the truth when you tell me, ?They report not refusing delivery of the publication to the two inmates you mentioned in your correspondence nor any other inmates.?? Is there no rule of law in North Carolina that you will continue to assert that you have followed the rules in this matter when the evidence clearly indicates the contrary?

MIM Distributors has attempted to mail this newsletter two times to about a dozen people being held prisoner by your department. The second time they were mailed along with your letter stating that the mail was approved to be received, so the mailroom could not claim ignorance of that decision. This is my sixth letter to you, not including letters to wardens of the offending facilities, about this one newsletter. The original newsletter was first mailed out in January 2014. Personally, I have been engaged with the literature review process in North Carolina for years and I have yet to see any evidence of any real process. I hope you can prove me wrong by following through on your word in this instance.

To reiterate, my request is that Under Lock & Key 36 be delivered by your department to the 13 people listed in my previous letter as you have indicated multiple times you would do. Once this is done, my request will be addressed.

Sincerely,

The publication has been rejected becuase the referenced page contains an article written by another inmate which references "Control Unit" protocols. Due to the reason cited, the above-named publication is not suited for introduction into a correctional facility.

The publication has been rejected becuase the referenced page contains an article written by another inmate which references "Control Unit" protocols. Due to the reason cited, the above-named publication is not suited for introduction into a correctional facility.

The following items are considered contraband and are not permitted in the facility:
Magazines, books, any correspondence containing sexually explicit material, information about the fabrication of weapons or explosive devices, any gang related material, electrical, plumbinb, or information on locks, information advocating overthrow of government, or anything containing material deemed to be detrimental to the safety and/or security of the facility, whether sent from publisher or citizen

Reason/ Comments: seized: pending appeal

Director's Review Committee
Jordan Unit
1992 Hilton Rd
Pampa, TX 79065-9655

November 27, 2014

RE: Censorship of Under Lock & Key to XXX

Dear DRC,
MIM Distributors received a letter dated November 20 from Mr. XX notifying us of the denial of two publications mailed to him: Under Lock & Key 40 (September 2014) and Under Lock & Key 39 (July 2014). These publications were all mailed to Mr XXXXXX on September 26 and August 1 respectively.
Per your policy BP03.91 IVD: "The offender and the sender or addressee shall be provided a written statement of the disapproval and a statement of the reason for disapproval within three business days after receiving the correspondence. The notice shall be given on Correspondence Denial Forms. The offender shall be given a sufficiently detailed description of the rejected correspondence to permit effective use of the appeal procedures." In violation of this policy, we did not receive any notification of this mail rejection.

The U.S. Supreme Court has clearly stated that both the sender and the prisoner have a right, under the First Amendment and the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, to receive notice and an opportunity to be heard when prison administrators or staff prevent the sender?s expressive materials from reaching their intended recipients (Procunier v. Martinez, 416 U.S.396. 94 S.Ct 1800, as reaffirmed on the point by Turner V. Safley, 482 U.S. 78 (1987) and Thornburgh v. Abbott, 490 U.S. 401 (1989) and Montcalm Publ'g Corp. v. Beck, 80 F.3d 105, 106 (4th Cir.), cert. denied, 519 U.S. 928 (1996)). In plain and striking contradiction with these principles, MIM Distributors was not notified of the censorship decision or actually of any decisions that the Mailroom staff has made with regard to the publications listed above.

In refusing to provide notice and an opportunity to be heard to the publisher (MIM Distributors), under local policies and/or practices, prison administrators and staff violated clearly established constitutional law and acted under color of state law for purposes of 42 U.S.C. ? 1983.

Per Texas DOC policy (BP-03.91 (rev.3)): "V. B. Any offender, other correspondent, or sender of a publication may appeal the rejection of any correspondence or publication. They may submit written evidence or arguments in support of their appeal. An offender or a correspondent may appeal the placement of the correspondent on the offender?s negative mailing list. An offender or a correspondent may appeal to the DRC for reconsideration of the negative mailing list placement after six months." Based on this we formally request an appeal of this censorship.

In your review of this censorship, please note that your own policy (BP-03.91 (rev.3)) states: "Publications shall not be rejected solely because the publication advocates the legitimate use of offender grievance procedures, urges offenders to contact public representatives about prison conditions, or contains criticism of prison authorities." In order to reject these publications for content, per your policy, you must demonstrate that the publication "contains material that a reasonable person would construe as written solely for the purpose of communicating information designed to achieve the breakdown of prisons through offender disruption such as strikes, riots, or STG activity". Although these publications do include articles calling on prisoners for a day of solidarity activity, this is specifically focused on building peace between prisoners. The call is issued by the United Front for Peace in Prisons, and asks prisoners to work together for 24 hours to cease all violence and prisoner-on-prisoner hostility while fasting or engaging in other peaceful demonstrations of solidarity. This is not something that could be construed to cause the breakdown of the prison, in fact it should have the effect of decreasing prisoner-on-prisoner violence in the long run, presumably a goal of the prison itself.

With this letter MIM Distributors requests
- Notification of all future denials of our mail to any prisoners in Jordan Unit
- Appeal of these specific instances of censorship
- and that future incoming mail from MIM Distributors to prisoners held at Jordan Unit be handled in accordance with TDCJ policies and procedures, and federal and state law.


Sincerely,

MIM Distributors
PO Box 40799
San Francisco, CA 94140

CC: Affected parties

..was rejected in its entirety because it jeopardizes a legitimate penological interest including, but not limited to, material which meet one of the following criteria:
8. Other: Altered

..was rejected in its entirety because it jeopardizes a legitimate penological interest including, but not limited to, material which meet one of the following criteria:
8. Other: Altered

..was rejected in its entirety because it jeopardizes a legitimate penological interest including, but not limited to, material which meet one of the following criteria:
5. It depicts, describes or encourages activities which may lead to the use of physical violence or group disruption.

..was rejected in its entirety because it jeopardizes a legitimate penological interest including, but not limited to, material which meet one of the following criteria:
6. It encourages or instructs in the commission of criminal activity
8. Other: Altered

Superintendent Robert Gilmore
State Correctional Institution Greene
175 Progressive Dr
Waynesburg, PA 15370-8090

November 17, 2014


Re: Censorship of XXX mail; and special mail regulations via 28 CFR 540-20(a); 28 CFR 540.70(4)(b)



Superintendent Gilmore,

Our organization publishes a newsletter known as Under Lock & Key (ULK). We publish news on various topics concerning the treatment of prisoners and politics. It has come to our attention that our mail to Mr. XXX is being censored: it is not being provided to him though it poses no threat to the safety or security to your facility.


28CFR 540.70(4)(b) states in relevant part:

"The warden may reject a publication only if it is determined detrimental to the security, good order, or discipline of the institution or if it might facilitate criminal activity. The warden may not reject a publication solely because its content is religious, philosophical, political, social or sexual, or because its content is unpopular or repugnant?"


Below is a list of the mail we sent to Mr. Hill over the past year which was censored:


Under Lock & Key #40 sent 9/26/2014
Form letter: How to send a check sent 8/11/2014
Palestine USW petition 8/11/2014
Censorship guide 8/2/2014
Under Lock & Key 39 8/1/2014
Form letter: how to send a check 6/20/2014
Under Lock & Key 38 5/30/2014


We request to receive notice and specific reasoning (if any) for the censorship or nondelivery of any of our mail or publications sent to Mr. XXX pursuant to BOP policy. We request that Mr. XXX be notified as well (see 28 CFR 540.13). This notification will enable us to appeal and pursue litigation.

Moreover, we are requesting that our correspondence with Mr. XXX be treated and processed as "special mail" which mandates that said mail be signed for by Mr. XXX and logged into a special mail log book, see 28 CFR 540.20(a): "An inmate may write through "special mail" to representatives of the news media specified by name or title (see, 540.2(b))."

We make this formal request after repeated nondelivery of mail, newsletters and other documents sent to Mr. XXX. Because of this censorship we make this formal complaint in hopes you will address this problem decisively and expeditiously so that no other action is necessary.


To summarize we request:
- A review of the censorship of mail sent to Mr. XXX
- To be provided with details on the nature of the material that was found to violate prison policy and merit censorship
- Notification of censorship of all future mail be provided to both MIM(Prisons) and Mr. XXX in a timely manner
- Processing as "special mail" our correspondence with Mr. XXX in the future.


Thank you for your time and consideration in this most important matter.


Respectfully,


MIM(Prisons)
PO Box 40799
San Francisco, CA 94140