Tracking Prison Censorship in the United States

Cynthia Bostic, Assistant Director
Support Services
4274 Mail Service Center
Raleigh, NC 27699-4274

21 August 2012

To Ms. Bostic,

This letter is in regards to mail sent to Mr. AAAA XXXX at Marion Correctional Institution, including a letter sent by myself on July 30, 2012. The mail was marked legal mail and certified. It included the letter I sent to you on the same date, which you should have received, as well as some documents of censorship and appeals of the censorship of our mail to Mr. XXXX. The United States Post Office lists this mail as being certified delivered to the addressee. Yet Mr. XXXX informs us that this mail was opened and read by state employees F. Hamilton and Ofc. Curtis counter to the procedures listed in D.0307(f)(1)(A). After reading this mail in front of him, staff took it with them for about 7 hours before returning it to Mr. XXXX. This is a blatant violation of the handling of certified legal mail, and I am requesting that your office investigate these staff members actions and ensure that they do not happen in the future.

It seems that most mail that MIM Distributors sends into Marion CI is being censored. Many items MIM has not received any notification for, nor have the recipients. This inappropriate handling of legal mail seems to be part of this systematic approach to any mail from MIM Distributors address, regardless of content. This reinforces suspicions related to previous censorship where you are unable to provide any substantiating evidence to back up claims that mail from MIM Distributors somehow poses a threat to safety of people living and working in North Carolina prisons. I am requesting that notifications be issued to the addressee and the sender when mail is censored, and that these notifications explain specifically what was objectionable and why.

As I mentioned in my last letter, I don't think we can consider it notification of censorship if you do not complete the forms that you send to MIM Distributors. Previous forms listed no reason for censorship or page numbers that violated rules. A recent notice given to Mr. XXXX does not list the publication name/volume/issue # as instructed, and the page number listed on page 2 of the form is "A." Judging by the date this form was addressing issue 27 of Under Lock & Key, but there is no page "A" in that publication. No notification of this incident has been received by MIM Distributors. So I am requesting that you send us a completed form when you do notify us of this censorship so that we can address your concerns.

In summary I am making the following requests:

1) ensure that your staff follow legal procedures in handling mail from MIM Distributors;
2) ensure that you and your staff fill out forms completely to provide proper notification of censorship;
3) specifically, provide a complete notice of censorship of mail received on 7/31/2012 at Marion CI.

Sincerely,

Director Charles L. Ryan
Arizona Department of Corrections
1601 W. Jefferson
Phoenix, AZ 85007

February 7, 2012

RE: Censorship incident occurred at ASPC Florence; exclusion of publications sent to prisoner XXX by MIM Distributors.

Dear Director Ryan,

I am writing this letter about a censorship incident that recently occurred in ASPC Florence. MIM Distributors sent the above mentioned inmate a magazine titled ?MIM Theory 8: The Anarchist Ideal and Communist Revolution.? with a study pack titled ?Anarchism and Socialism." The magazine and study pack were mailed to Mr. XXX on January 8, 2012 via First Class Mail.

We recently learned from the prisoner that the magazine and study pack were excluded based on a determination that the Office of Publication Review made on November 4, 2008. The prisoner was notified of the exclusion on January 24, 2012 and appealed the negative determination asking for a second review, according to the rules established on the D.O. 914 of your Department.

MIM Distributors, on the contrary, hasn?t received yet any notice of censorship determination of its material.

As you are responsible to know, and we have informed you previously, 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 never notified of the censorship decision, in 2008 or 2012.

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.

With the present letter, MIM Distributors requests to be notified of the reasons of the censorship decision and to be offered a chance to appeal the exclusion of its materials, accordingly to the case law above cited.

We appreciate your assistance in this matter and look forward to your response.

Sincerely,

MIM Distributors

CC: Affected parties

Jason L. Reese
Office of Publication Review
1601 W. Jefferson
Phoenix, AZ 85007

May 4, 2012

RE: Your letter dated February 24, 2012
ITEMS CENSORED: MIM Theory 8: The Anarchist Ideal and Communist Revolution magazine and "Anarchism or Socialism?" study pack
INTENDED RECIPIENT: Mr. XXX, held in ASPC Florence


Dear Mr. Reese,

I have recently received a letter from you in response to a previous letter that I sent on February 7, 2012, in which I raised a series of concerns regarding a censorship incident that occurred in ASPC Florence.

As you know, MIM Distributors sent Mr. XXX a parcel of mail on January 8, 2012 which contained two publications: (1) MIM Theory 8: The Anarchist Ideal and Communist Revolution magazine, and (2) "Anarchism or Socialism?" study pack. We recently learned from Mr. XXX that the "Anarchism or Socialism?" study pack was allowed to him after review. We are glad that Mr. XXX was allowed appeal rights for this study pack.

Unfortunately, you are still evading our ultimate concerns, raised in our February 7, 2012 letter, about the lack of any notice to the publisher of the reasons the publication was censored and excluded, and publisher's appeal rights. As stated, MIM Distributors only learned from the prisoner that he never received the mail parcel. It was from Mr. XXX that we learned that MIM Theory 8: The Anarchist Ideal and Communist Revolution was excluded based on a determination that the Office of Publication Review made on November 4, 2008.

Your February 24, 2012 reply completely eludes these concerns and only states Mr. XXX's appeal process, which is not only already known to MIM Distributors, but is irrelevant to our own right to due process as publishers and senders of mail.

As we have stated in the past, this practice is clearly conflicting with the relevant case law. As already stated in the previous letter we sent you regarding this matter, you are responsible to know 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)).

Once again, even after our specific request, in plain and striking contradiction with these principles, your Department has not offered MIM Distributors a chance to appeal this censorship decision. Still, MIM Distributors has not been officially notified by your Department as to why the censorship incident occurred in the first place. 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.

We appreciate your assistance in this matter and look forward to your response.

Sincerely,

MIM Distributors

CC: Affected parties

Director Charles L. Ryan
Arizona Department of Corrections
1601 W. Jefferson
Phoenix, AZ 85007

Deputy Director Jeff Hood
Arizona Department of Corrections
1601 W. Jefferson
Phoenix, AZ 85007

August 16, 2012

RE: Censorship of magazine MIM Theory 8: The Anarchist Ideal and Communist Revolution (1995) to Mr. XXX at ASPC-E-Browning

Dear Deputy Director,

Recently Mr. XX sent us a copy of a memorandum he received from you (attached) stating that the above-named publication "contains information that seeks to agitate and promote disorder among Arizona state prisoners," and "is directed at inciting the prison population to revolt and/or resist against legitimate institutional authority." Thus, on 3/2/12 you decided that this magazine still "is in violation of 914.08 UNAUTHORIZED PUBLICATIONS AND MATERIAL 1.1.1 Depictions or disruptions that incite, aid, or abet riots, work stoppages, or means of resistance."

With the present letter I am not asking for an additional review of the publication, or an appeal of your decision, per se. I do, however, find it necessary to highlight the error of this decision to exclude this publication from delivery to Mr. XXX, for the record. Should you choose to redact your erroneous decision to deny Mr. XXX and MIM Distributors their Constitutional rights of free speech and political beliefs, then we would all be the better for it.

Enclosed with this letter I have included a copy of the table of contents for your reference. I have read through this issue of MIM Theory and have not found any articles that are directed at the prisoner population at all. The bulk of the articles are, as the title suggests, about the political ideology of anarchism, as analyzed from a Maoist perspective. There is no content in this magazine that "seeks to agitate and promote disorder among Arizona state prisoners" or "is directed at inciting the prison population to revolt and/or resist against legitimate institutional authority."

One thing I am requesting is more information from you to back up your position that this magazine meets the guideline of exclusion found in 914.08. A page number or article title would be incredibly helpful for me and anyone paying attention to this censorship incident to understand your thinking behind your censorship decision.

We appreciate your assistance in this matter and look forward to your response.

Sincerely,

MIM Distributors


CC: Affected parties