Tracking Prison Censorship in the United States

Warden Derral Adams
CSATF
PO Box 8800
Corcoran, CA 93212-8309

2 April 2010

Dear Warden Adams,

On 24 February 2010 mailroom staff V. Oyerviolez wrongly censored a magazine from MIM Distributors to Mr. XXX held at CSATF. This letter is to appeal that decision, and to allow the magazine to be delivered to Mr. XXXXXX.

The reason that V. Oyerviolez gave for this censorship this censorship was CCR Title 15, Section 3006 (c) (11) "Catalogs, advertisements, brochures and materials whose primary purpose is to sell product(s)" shall be disapproved for delivery. The item in question is actually a magazine, not a catalog, titled MIM Theory 14: United Front. Admittedly, the inside of the back cover of the magazine has advertisements for other issues of MIM Theory. However, it is obvious that V. Oyerviolez did not do a thorough or accurate investigation of the true nature of this magazine, because MIM Theory 14: United Front is NOT a catalog, but instead 170 pages of pure plain text. Even the front cover identifies the publication as a "theoretical journal" which implies wordiness, not sales.

Upon review, this magazine will be determined to not be a catalog, and should be permitted for timely delivery to Mr. XXX. It is ridiculous and illegal that the impotency of your mailroom staff at CSATF should lead to such hassle and delay. We ask that you reprimand V. Overviolez for their intentional disregard of their responsibility to their job, and retrain your staff on how to tell the difference between a document that is made up of articles and a document that is made up of advertisements.

We appreciate your assistance and look forward to your response.

Sincerely,

MIM Distributors

CC: Affected parties

U.S. Bureau of Prisons
North Central Regional Office
400 State Street
Tower II, 8th Floor
Kansas City, KS 66101

2 April 2010

Dear Regional Director,

This letter is regarding blanket censorship of mail from MIM Distributors to prisoners held at U.S. Penitentiary Marion for the past year. The publication in question is titled Under Lock & Key. It is a newsletter that contains articles that are written by prisoners. No identifying information, such as names of ID#s, is disclosed in the newsletter.

On 22 April 2009, ULK issue 7 (March 2009) was censored because it contains inmate-to-inmate information. However, considering prisoners are allowed to write for the press, and prisoners are allowed to read the press, it would be illegal to claim that ULK falls under this category of being inmate-to-inmate correspondence, unless you are also censoring newspapers that have any authors who are currently in prison. This same illegitimate reason was given to censor issue 9 (July 2009) and issue 10 (September 2009). Issue 8 was not sent into Marion prison, which is probably why it wasn't censored.

Issue 11 ( November 2009) was censored because pages 6, 7, 10, and 11 "contains correspondence which encourages actions which may be disruptive to the orderly operation of the institution." On page 7 of issue 11, in a box titled "What is MIM(Prisons)?" is written "MIM(Prisons) struggles to end the oppression of all groups over other groups. We encourage prisoners to join these battles while explicitly discouraging them from engaging in any violence or illegal acts. MIM(Prisons) and its publications explicitly oppose the use of armed struggle at this time..." and the rest of the publication stays true to that principle.

This letter is to appeal that decision made by mailroom staff at USP Marion. We do not think that there are valid grounds on which to make the claim that Under Lock & Key should be completely banned at that institution. We would also like to ask that further correspondence between MIM Distributors and any prisoners at USP Marion go on without harassment or illegal censorship in the future.

We appreciate your assistance and look forward to your response.

Sincerely,

MIM Distributors

CC: Affected parties

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,