Tracking Prison Censorship in the United States

Functional Unit Manager
Oregon State Penitentiary
2605 State Street
Salem, OR 97310-0505


13 June 2007

Dear Sir/Madam,

This letter is in response to a Mail Violation Notice we received dated 05/24/07 (see enclosed) for a letter sent to Mr. XXX XXXXXX (XXXXXX). The written reason on the violation reads, ?recruiting inmates to create a threat to the security of facility.? I am writing to challenge this statement, since nowhere in the letter does MIM advocate any activity that would threaten security. We encourage prisoners to write articles, do translation work, join study groups, spread our literature around and we explicitly discourage prisoners from engaging in any activities that would break the rules at their facility.

Clearly the letter in question does not recruit for any ?security threatening? activities. On the contrary, those who are familiar with our work can attest to the fact that those who work with MIM seriously tend to be less likely to cause disruptions in prison. As we have been over repeatedly with staff at OSP, materials cannot be censored because staff disagrees with the political content. It is our hope that upon your review you will reverse this decision and further ensure that such incidents are avoided in the future by clarifying federal laws and facility rules around censorship.


Sincerely,
MIM Distributors

No reasoning was provided, but the prisoner reported receiving the newspaper with one page cut out following the media review.

Randy Greer
Mail Administrator, OR DOC
2575 Center Street NE
Salem, OR 97310

18 February 2007

Dear Mr. Greer,

This letter is in response to the censorship of two magazines (What is MIM? and MIM Theory No. 4) sent to Mr. XXXXXX XXXXXX XXXXXX at SRCI in January 2007. The magazines were sent by MIM Distributors, who are also the publishers of the magazines. The reported reason for this censorship was ?foreign substance on magazine? (see enclosed Mail Violation Notice). This is apparently a reference to a small brown dot on the center of the front cover of the MIM Theory No. 4 magazine (see enclosed photocopy).

Mr. Greer, you may be aware of a similar struggle we had at TRCI last year regarding a copy of MIM Theory that was deemed ?used? and rejected. While we were not able to establish a clear standard for how ?new? vs. ?used? materials are judged, MIM Distributors has responded by ceasing its previous practice of sending damaged materials to prisoners in Oregon that would not be useable on newstands or in bookstores. Despite this, we have encountered this problem again with this recent incident. It is also unclear why the second magazine was censored.

I understand that we may not seek administrative review for these incidents. But it does seem clear that there is a concerted effort to find excuses to prevent MIM?s publications from being received by prisoners in many of the ODOC?s facilities. So I am writing this letter to document this incident for yourself and the SRCI mailroom in hopes that you can work to ensure a more reasonable enforcement of the mail policy.

Thank you for your attention in this matter,