Tracking Prison Censorship in the United States

Cynthia Bostic, Assistant Director
Support Services
4260 Mail Service Center
Raleigh, NC 27699-4260

28 May 2013

To Ms. Bostic,

This letter is to request a review of the decision to censor the March/April issue of Under Lock & Key, No. 31. The notification sent from Fay Lassiter justified this censorship with the reason ?A Code.? It seems she is claiming that the newsletter promotes criminal activity or breaking the law. Every issue of Under Lock & Key states on page 2, ?We encourage prisoners to join these battles
while explicitly discouraging them from engaging in
any violence or illegal acts.
? Unless you can find content contradicting this statement, I would argue that there is no justification for censoring this issue of Under Lock & Key.

We recently issued a records request from your office to demonstrate whether there is an independent review process and to justify the consistent decisions to uphold the censorship of our mail. We are still awaiting your response to this request issued over 2 months ago.


Thank you,

DAI Deputy Director
Department of Corrections
2729 Plaza Drive
Jefferson City, MO 65109

12 March 2013

RE: Statewide Censorship of Under Lock & Key Issue 30

Dear Sir/Madam,

We have received many notices, from multiple institutions in the Missouri DOC that state that Under Lock & Key, Jan/Feb, Issue #30 has been censored by the department. This letter is to request an independent review of this decision.

The reason stated is "IS13-1.2 Censorship Procedure III C-2 a.," which refers to "promotes, incites or advocates violence, disorder or the violation of state or federal law, or advocates, facilitates or otherwise presents a risk of lawlessness?" Under Lock & Key is very explicit in discouraging prisoners from using violence or from violating the law. The notification cites pages 1 and 9 of the newsletter. While there is a reference to violence on both pages, neither could be construed to be encouraging or promoting violence.

The first page contains a review of a book on economics and an article about the shooting that occurred in Newtown, CT. The artwork for the latter does depict Uncle Sam firing a gun, but this was a critique of the use of violence in this country and clearly not encouraging prisoners to follow suit.

Page 9 contains portions of an article about segregation in schools, which has no mention of violence or lawbreaking, not to mention advocating it. This page also contains the beginnings of an article on censorship, coincidentally, that compares statements about violence made by the founding fathers to materials that were deemed "dangerous" by the Wisconsin DOC. Perhaps the reviewer in Missouri wanted to prove the writer incorrect that these statements by the founding fathers would not be censored by prison employees. But they were put forth to prove a point in a legal argument, which is the type of arguments ULK consistently promotes, not as a means to make any argument for violence as is evident by reading the article.

It seems the reviewer mistakenly saw mentions of violence as promoting it, rather than reading the articles to see that they both served as a critique. I hope you agree and allow the prisoners held throughout Missouri to receive their copies of Under Lock & Key Issue 30. Thank you for taking the time to review this matter.

Sincerely,

DAI Deputy Director
Department of Corrections
2729 Plaza Drive
Jefferson City, MO 65109

3 June 2013

RE: Censorship of Under Lock & Key Issue 31

Dear Mr. Dormire,

We have received many notices, from multiple institutions in the Missouri DOC that state that Under Lock & Key, March/April, Issue #31 has been censored by the department. This letter is to request an independent review of this decision.

Since various reasons have been given by different wardens I have included the documents stating their reasons. Below I will attempt to briefly address them as I understand them.

Staff at Jefferson City Correctional Center cite "IS13-1.2 Censorship Procedure III C-2 a.," which refers to "promotes, incites or advocates violence, disorder or the violation of state or federal law, or advocates, facilitates or otherwise presents a risk of lawlessness?" and they refer to page 15. This was the same rule cited to censor issue #30, which you agreed was in error back in April. However, this time I'm not even sure what this rule is in reference to as the contents of page 15 of Under Lock & Key #31 is merely an article on education, a description of the organization that publishes the newsletter and a reader survey.

The explanations from Western Missouri Correctional Center and Southeast Correctional Center both make reference to the newsletter explaining how to organize a group. Omer Clark cites page 2 of the newsletter, which is merely a description of the organizations that write and produce the newsletter. That page also discourages the use of violence against staff and other prisoners. It seems that to censor literature for containing such descriptions would lead to an across the board ban on any literature that is published by "an organization."

I hope that you can clarify these matters for us as well as those attempting to censor our mail. Thank you for taking the time to review this matter.

Sincerely,

The policy on bartering and trading applies only on an inmate-to-inmate basis and makes no mention about transactions with outside organizations. In addition, just because the organization offered the option of trading work for study, does not mean that the inmate will exercise that option, much less choose to participate in the course offered.

Thornburgh v. Abbot, 490 U.S. 401: "Wardens may not reject a publication ' solely because its content is religious, philosophical, political, social, sexual or... unpopular or repugnant.'"