Tracking Prison Censorship in the United States

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,

Frank Ontko, Library Services
2601 Blair Stone Road
Tallahassee, Florida 32399-2500

1 March 2010

Dear Mr. Ontko,

I received your response dated February 19, 2010 to my inquiries about literature that was censored at Florida State Prison (FSP). I do have some further questions on both issues.

First, you stated that "loose pages of material" are not considered publications. The literature sent was not loose (by my understanding of the word), but rather bound with multiple staples. Is it within your departments policy to define this as "loose pages"? If so, can you clarify how your department defines "loose" so that we can avoid any problems with this rule in the future?

Regarding the decision on my appeal of the censorship of Under Lock & Key Issue 11, it seems that the original reasons for censorship were abandoned for the reason you give in your recent letter that, it "advocates and encourages disruption of the institution and violation of department and institution rules." I will take that to mean that you agreed with me that the original reasons given were not legally substantive. However, I find this new reason even more baseless in that it does not even reflect the actual content of the publication.

If you intend to uphold the censorship of Under Lock & Key 11, can you please provide me with the rules that it promotes people to violate, and quotes and page numbers of where it does so?

We are keenly aware of the concerns of prison administrators, and the content of Under Lock & Key, caters to these concerns explicitly by arguing against breaking prison rules or the law, while promoting actions to defend the rights of people who are imprisoned. For your office to claim otherwise is hard to justify with any evidence.

Sincerely,

Brian Haws, Warden
44750 60th Street West
Lacaster, CA 93536-7620

24 February 2010

Dear Warden Haws,

This letter is regarding the censorship of a letter from MIM Distributors, San Francisco, California to Mr. XXX, who is a prisoner at California State Prison - Los Angeles County. Ironically, the content of the letter in question was a step-by-step guide to fighting censorship of mail, beginning with Step 1: File Grievances.

The letter was returned to MIM Distributors with "Unauthorized/Unacceptable Item" stamped on the envelope, but no further explanation as to why or what was unauthorized/unacceptable about the item. It is completely ridiculous and illegal that a letter that encourages prisoners to use legal means of fighting censorship should be disallowed as an "unauthorized/unacceptable item."

Therefore, this letter is to appeal that decision made by mailroom staff. We do not think that there are valid grounds on which to block the receipt of a letter that helps prisoners fight censorship by those held at CSP-LA County.

We request (1) an independent review the decision made by CSP-LA County mailroom staff to mark this letter as "unauthorized/unacceptable." We also ask for (2) a thorough explanation as to why this item was censored, with specific citations. Lastly, we ask that (3) mail be deliverable from MIM Distributors to all prisoners who choose to communicate with them AT CSP-LA County.

We appreciate your assistance and look forward to your response.

Sincerely,

MIM Distributors

CC: Affected parties

Menard Correctional Center
Attn: Publication Review Officer
711 Kaskaskia Street
PO Box 711
Menard, IL 62259

21 February 2010

Dear Publication Review Officer,

This letter is to request a review of the denial of a publication titled Under Lock & Key issue 11 (Nov/Dec 2009), published and distributed by MIM Distributors, San Francisco, CA. This publication was denied to AAA, BBB, CCC, DDD, and EEE at Menard Correctional Center. The decision to censor this publication was made by L. Shemonic on 15 December 2009.

The reasons this publication was denied are listed as "depict, describe, or encourage activities that may lead to the use of physical violence or group disruption or it facilitates organizational activity without approval of the Chief Administrative Officer"; "be otherwise detrimental to security, good order, rehabilitation, or discipline or it might facilitate criminal activity or be detrimental to mental health"; and "denied per intel for STG content."

This censorship of Under Lock & Key has been going on for many months, and every time someone from our legal team writes in to dispute it, the decision is overturned on further investigation. We see this as an issue of inadequate training of the mailroom staff at Menard Correctional Center, and we believe it is in everyone's best interest if they were retrained to accurately determine whether Under Lock & Key violates Menard policies. To date, the censorship of Under Lock & Key has not stood up to the Publication Review Committee.

Within the pages of every issue of Under Lock & Key is a box titled "What is MIM(Prisons)?" In issue 11, it is on page 7. This box contains the main principles of the organization that puts Under Lock & Key together, MIM(Prisons) and in it says "Our current battles in the United States are legal ones. We encourage prisoners to join these battles while explicitly discouraging them from engaging in any violence or illegal acts." If one took a closer look at the articles within the pages of Under Lock & Key, one could tell that this theme runs throughout the whole newsletter. We disagree that a newsletter when an explicit position against violence and criminal activity could be in violation of the previously mentioned reasons issue 11 was censored.

This censorship is similar to the Menard mailroom's censorship of Under Lock & Key issue 8 (May 2009) and issue 9 (July 2009). They were both censored because they "threatened the good order of the institution," but this decision was overturned by the Publication Review Officer on both accounts. So, we already know that ULK, on the whole, is not a threat to the good order of the institution, and that there is not sufficient evidence to prove such.

In our last letter to Menard Publication Review Committee on 31 August 2009 regarding the censorship of Under Lock & Key issue 9, we argued that there is not a legitimate newspaper in the world that does not print articles that "depict violence" or involve groups that your institution probably labels "security threat groups." We went on to argue that mentioning a group's name, or referring to them indirectly, especially in the context of asking for peace and unity, which is quite the opposite of violence, does not "depict, describe, or encourage activities that may lead to the use of physical violence or group disruption," as this denial claims. According to Walker v. Sumner (9th Cir. 1990) 917 F.2d 382, 385 "prison authorities cannot rely on general or conclusory assertions to support their policies." What proof do you have that "STG references" in any way threaten the institution? Especially because we are asking for peace, and an end to STG violence.

In conclusion, we request (1) an appeal of this decision made by L. Shemonic by the Publication Review Committee. We also request (2) that the mailroom staff at Menard Correctional Center be retrained to accurately and objectively determine the appropriate status of any publication being mailed to someone held at Menard, especially as it relates to potentially controversial literature such as Under Lock & Key. We request that (3) AAA, BBB, CCC, DDD, and EEE be allowed to receive their copies of Under Lock & Key issue 11 that are being held by mailroom staff, and that (4) any prisoners held at Menard who choose to communicate with MIM Distributors and MIM(Prisons) be able to do so without illegal denials and excessive delays in mail delivery.

We appreciate you investigating further into this error and look forward to your response.

Sincerely,

MIM Distributors

CC: Donald Gaetz, Warden
Affected parties