Tracking Prison Censorship in the United States

Warden Anthony Hedgpeth
Salinas Valley State Prison
PO Box 1020
Soledad, CA 93960-1020

8 March 2010

Warden Hedgpeth,

On April 28, 2009 and July 6, 2009 you acknowledged that publications from MIM Distributors were not banned in California prisons, after months of mail be returned to sender from your facility. However, we continue to receive our mail returned to us stamped "Unauthorized/Unacceptable Item" or "Not on approved mailing list at SVSP." This week alone we received 10 letters returned as described above.

This problem has been ongoing consistently since 2007, with no signs that your mailroom staff is following the department?s rules, nor legal precedent. You have assured us on more than one occasion that your staff has been retrained to not ban mail from MIM Distributors, but this is obviously not the reality.

I am requesting that immediate action be taken to remedy this problem.

Sincerely,

MIM Distributors


CC: Affected parties

Lowell Clark, Director
Utah State Prison (USP)
PO Box 250
Draper, Utah 84020

26 October 2009

Director Lowell Clark,

We have received your October 14th letter stating that pre-sorted mail will be delivered to prisoners in Utah prisons as long as prisoners have notified the administration of their subscriptions. Thank you for clarifying this matter for us and for the staff in the mail room there. It may be a good idea to publicize this policy more generally so that other prisoners don?t have unnecessary problems joining mailing lists such as ours in the future.

As far as sending you a list of our subscribers, this would be against our confidentially policy for our readers. Instead I will cc individuals who have subscribed so that they may contact you themselves to obtain any information. If there are any problems obtaining this information, MIM Distributors will be happy to put anyone in contact with you at their request.

One question that remains, is that recent First Class mail was returned stating that prisoners in Intensive Management cannot receive magazines. If this is true, can you provide me with a copy the regulation that sets this standard. If not, then I am requesting that this censorship be stopped as well.

Thank you again for looking into this for us,

Lowell Clark, Division Director
Utah State Prison (USP)
P.O. Box 250
Draper, UT 84020

24 February 2010

Dear Director Clark,

This letter is regarding a Level 2 Response that Inmate Grievance Coordinator Billie Casper gave to XXX at Utah State Prison, reference #990873529. The response is regarding a grievance XXX filed asserting that there is a blanket censorship of the publication Under Lock & Key that has prevented XXX from receiving issues #4, 6, 8, 9 and 10.

In this Level 2 Response Coordinator Casper wrote that "Inmates housed in intensive management sections are only allowed First Class mail and privileged or religious mail," without providing a reference to any specific policy number. Coordinator Casper even went so far as to accuse XXX of filing his grievance maliciously and threatened to suspend Mr. XXXXXX from the grievance system if he did not withdraw his grievance about the blanket ban of Under Lock & Key.

As the publisher and distributor of the newsletter Under Lock & Key, we would like to refer you to some very relevant case law to this disagreement between MIM Distributors/XXX and Coordinator Casper/USP. In Prison Legal News v. Lehman 397 5.30 692 (9th Cir. 2005) it was determined that "Under the test laid out in Turner v. Safley, 482 U.S. 78, 89-90 (1987), the [GA] DOC?s ban on non-subscription bulk mail and catalogs is not rationally related to a legitimate penological interest and is therefore unconstitutional." So although Coordinator Casper may be working within USP policy, USP policy is not congruent with United States law.

We are asking that you (1) review the Utah State Prison policy that asserts that IMU prisoners are not allowed to receive bulk mail, (2) work with the proper authorities to legally and properly update the USP policies, and (3) retrain USP mailroom and grievance staff to the new, legal policies. We also ask you to (4) lift the blanket censorship of Under Lock & Key, (5) and, if XXX was put on grievance suspension, to remove XXX from grievance suspension.


We look forward to your response.

Sincerely,

MIM Distributors

CC: Affected parties.

Literature Review Committee
2601 Blair Stone Road
Tallahassee, Florida 32399-2500

18 January 2010

Dear Sir or Madam,

In December, 2009 the mail room at Florida State Prison (FSP) began returning mail coming from MIM Distributors. This letter is to request a review of these decisions and to re-establish contact with prisoners at FSP.

Mailroom personnel P. Goodman has signed off on a number of ?Unauthorized Mail Return Receipts? for mail sent to Mr. XXX YYY. Two packages of reading material were returned for the reasons that an ?excess of 15 pages? was enclosed. As a known distributor, any publications sent from MIM Distributors should be processed as ?Admissible Reading Material? in accordance with Florida Administrative Code Chapter 33-501.401and not as ?Routine Mail.? ?Admissible Reading Material? does not have a page limit. Many small run publications are printed on plain white paper, but are clearly not letters due to their size and content.

In a third return receipt from P. Goodman they claim that the letter somehow promotes violence or disruption because ?it about gangs.? A portion of the letter discusses the Crips in a historical context. It does not discuss or promote acts of violence or the breaking of any laws or rules. The court?s decision in Thornburgh v. Abbott, 490 U.S. 401 is clear that there must be a substantiated threat, and that censorship cannot be based on political or historical discussions.

Earlier in the same month, Issue 11 of the newsletter Under Lock & Key sent to a number of prisoners was impounded for review. This was done correctly applying Rule 33-501.401, yet on the notices none of the criteria set forth in Section (3) of the rule were specified to have been violated. The notice did list page numbers and descriptions of the content including, ?About Movements And gangs?, ?About (KKK)? and ?About Gangs?. Each description is factually correct, so the question is do these items violate any of the criteria laid out? As part of a prisoners? 1st Amendment rights protected under established case law, he may read, correspond with and participate in political organizations. Saying the word ?KKK? or ?gang? is not a threat to anyone.

I am requesting that 1) Under Lock & Key be released from impound and distributed to each subscriber, 2) that packages from MIM Distributors be handled as ?Admissible Reading Material? and not ?Routine Mail? and 3) that XXX YYY be allowed to read and study without harassment or undo restrictions. Please notify MIM Distributors at the address above of your decisions.

Sincerely,