Tracking Prison Censorship in the United States

Assistant Section Chief
Support Services
4260 Mail Service Center
Raleigh, NC 27699-4260

4 November 2014

RE: continued censorship of approved literature

Dear Ms. Bostic,

After writing you in mid-March and mid-May about the censorship of Under Lock & Key 36, you notified MIM Distributors in a June 4 letter that Under Lock & Key 36 will be allowed in North Carolina prisons. When my colleague requested that all copies of this issue of the newsletter be delivered to the prisoners they were mailed to, you informed her that MIM Distributors must resend the newsletters at their own cost. Since then, numerous copies have been resent, and we have confirmed that at least 2 have been censored (see enclosed delivery confirmation).

I am cc'ing the wardens of Scotland Correctional Facility and New Hanover Correctional Center to notify them that their mailroom staff has not been following the decisions of your office. The two prisoners affected are:

WWW ZZZ #AAA
XXX YYY #BBB

We are requesting that your office deliver copies of Under Lock & Key 36 to the prisoners above in order to ensure delivery. We have found in the past that administrative intervention can help remedy these problems at the local level and hope you will assist us in this matter.

Sincerely,

Katy Poole, Acting Correctional Administrator
Scotland Correctional Institution
PO Box 1808
Laurinburg, NC 28353-1808

2 December 2014

RE: censorship of approved literature (follow up)

Dear Ms. Poole,

I received your letter from 18 November responding to my inquiry about the censorship of literature approved by the North Carolina Department of Public Safety. While I appreciate the updated address for the person mentioned in that letter, you did not address my concern about the disappearance of this approved literature in your mailroom. Below is a list of other prisoners who have not received the same approved item, Under Lock & Key Issue 36:

[omitted]

As you can see from the enclosed U.S. Postal Service certified mail receipts, all of these were mailed after your department had approved Under Lock & Key Issue 36. To ensure that your staff was aware of this decision, the newsletters were mailed with copies of the letter from Assistant Section Chief, Cynthia Bostic approving it for receipt by North Carolina prisoners. Yet no one seems to have received it and no one has been notified of any censorship. How is it that this mail was not delivered?

I am requesting that you remedy this situation and ensure that all of the above people receive their copies of Under Lock & Key 36.

Sincerely,

Assistant Section Chief
Support Services
4260 Mail Service Center
Raleigh, NC 27699-4260

2 December 2014

RE: continued censorship of approved literature (follow up)

Dear Ms. Bostic,

I received your letter from 13 November upholding the censorship of Under Lock & Key Issue 39. While I find it regrettable that you objected to the commemoration of those killed and abused by the state of New York in Attica in 1971, I do appreciate the explanation this time and will pass it along to the editor.

I have not received a response from you to my more recent letter regarding the failure of many facilities to deliver an approved issue of ULK, Issue 36. This letter is to follow up on that, as I did receive a response from Katy Poole at Scotland CI, who informed me that Mr. XXX YYY has since left Scotland. She did not address the missing mail. So I am writing again to expand the list of prisoners whose mail has gone missing without explanation from your department.

On July 22, following the notification that ULK 36 was approved by your office, and following your assertion to Ms. Clarke that MIM Distributors must mail new copies of the newsletter to prisoners on their mailing list, new copies of ULK 36 were sent along with the letter of approval from your office to the following prisoners: [omitted]

As you can see, while most of the missing mail was at Scotland CI, this pattern seems to have occurred at a number of facilities. And as noted, the mailroom staff could not plead ignorance to your decision since your letter was mailed along with the newsletters via U.S. Certified Mail. The U.S. Postal Service has confirmed that these newsletters were received at each facility on 25 July. I am reiterating my request for your assistance in assuring that these prisoners receive their newsletters, which have been mailed to them twice now by MIM Distributors. It is evident that intervention is required to enforce the rules at these facilities.

Sincerely,

Assistant Section Chief
Support Services
4260 Mail Service Center
Raleigh, NC 27699-4260

25 December 2014

RE: continued censorship of approved literature (follow up 2)

Dear Ms. Bostic,

I just received your letter dated 5 December, postmarked 15 December addressing the continued censorship of Under Lock & Key 36 at various North Carolina prisons, even after it was approved by your office. To answer your letter, no, you have not addressed my request, which was for you to ensure delivery of said newsletter to the numerous people who have been denied it by your department. I even suggested a means by which to carry this out. In other states when mailroom staff continue to throw out mail we have succeeded in getting mail delivered by having it handled by administrative personnel such as yourself. Instead, you continue to assert that the mail was not refused.

In my previous letter (2 December 2014) I included documentation from the United States Postal Service showing that the newsletters, with copies of your approval letter, addressed to at least 13 people were delivered to 6 different facilities. Am I to believe that the USPS is lying and that NCDPS staff, who have repeatedly not delivered mail from MIM Distributors are telling the truth when you tell me, ?They report not refusing delivery of the publication to the two inmates you mentioned in your correspondence nor any other inmates.?? Is there no rule of law in North Carolina that you will continue to assert that you have followed the rules in this matter when the evidence clearly indicates the contrary?

MIM Distributors has attempted to mail this newsletter two times to about a dozen people being held prisoner by your department. The second time they were mailed along with your letter stating that the mail was approved to be received, so the mailroom could not claim ignorance of that decision. This is my sixth letter to you, not including letters to wardens of the offending facilities, about this one newsletter. The original newsletter was first mailed out in January 2014. Personally, I have been engaged with the literature review process in North Carolina for years and I have yet to see any evidence of any real process. I hope you can prove me wrong by following through on your word in this instance.

To reiterate, my request is that Under Lock & Key 36 be delivered by your department to the 13 people listed in my previous letter as you have indicated multiple times you would do. Once this is done, my request will be addressed.

Sincerely,

13 October 2014

RE: censorship of Under Lock & Key No. 39 (July/August 2014)

Dear Assistant Director,

This letter is in response to a 3 October 2014 letter from Fay Lassiter, Chair, Publication Review Committee regarding the publication titled Under Lock & Key No. 39 (July/August 2014). We received this letter on 8 October 2014.

The letter states that the publication was disapproved for delivery to prisoners in North Carolina because it allegedly violates North Carolina Division of Prisons policy D.0100. The only reason indicated on page 1 of the form was '?D? Code Violation.' As we have repeatedly pointed out, this vague reasoning makes it hard for MIM Distributors to address your department's concerns.

Additionally, in your Policy & Procedures D.0100 Publications Received/Posessed by Inmates, at .0103 (b), it states ?Descriptions and justifications should be specific enough to enable the Publication Review Committee (if there is an appeal) to turn to each listed page and immediately identify which words or images were disapproved and why.? I know this Procedure relates to the notes the Warden makes when referring the publication to the Publication Review Committee. Yet, page 2 and 3 of the Letter to Publisher form, where the page numbers and comments indicating what is objectionable, are consistently left blank. We are requesting that in the future that the Chairperson complete the standard paperwork according to your department's policies to facilitate our communications.

The repeated censorship of whole publications without the information we are requesting does not sufficiently articulate the reasoning for banning publications in order to satisfy the threshold of adequate motivation established by the U.S. Supreme Court. Federal Courts have stated in several occasions that "Prison authorities cannot rely on general or conclusory assertions to support their policies." Walker v. Sumner (9th Cir. 1990) 917 F.2d 382, 385 and that "Unsupported security claims couldn't justify infringement on First Amendment rights." Crofton v. Roe (9th Cir. 1999) 170 F.3d 957

At this time we can only appeal based on our knowledge of the whole content of that publication, that it does not advocate ?violence, disorder, insurrection or terrorist/gang activities.?
We did receive your letter from 8 September 2014 upholding the censorship of issue #38 of Under Lock & Key. In that letter you specified the content that you used to justify that censorship as we are requesting here, however this was received over three months after we first received notice from a prisoner that your department was holding that publication and after you had closed any opportunities to redress the censorship of MIM Distributors mail.

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

Sincerely,

Assistant Section Chief
Support Services
4260 Mail Service Center
Raleigh, NC 27699-4260

4 November 2014

RE: continued censorship of approved literature

Dear Ms. Bostic,

After writing you in mid-March and mid-May about the censorship of Under Lock & Key 36, you notified MIM Distributors in a June 4 letter that Under Lock & Key 36 will be allowed in North Carolina prisons. When my colleague requested that all copies of this issue of the newsletter be delivered to the prisoners they were mailed to, you informed her that MIM Distributors must resend the newsletters at their own cost. Since then, numerous copies have been resent, and we have confirmed that at least 2 have been censored (see enclosed delivery confirmation).

I am cc'ing the wardens of Scotland Correctional Facility and New Hanover Correctional Center to notify them that their mailroom staff has not been following the decisions of your office. The two prisoners affected are:

WWW ZZZ #AAA
XXX YYY #BBB

We are requesting that your office deliver copies of Under Lock & Key 36 to the prisoners above in order to ensure delivery. We have found in the past that administrative intervention can help remedy these problems at the local level and hope you will assist us in this matter.

Sincerely,

Assistant Section Chief
Support Services
4260 Mail Service Center
Raleigh, NC 27699-4260

4 November 2014

RE: continued censorship of approved literature

Dear Ms. Bostic,

After writing you in mid-March and mid-May about the censorship of Under Lock & Key 36, you notified MIM Distributors in a June 4 letter that Under Lock & Key 36 will be allowed in North Carolina prisons. When my colleague requested that all copies of this issue of the newsletter be delivered to the prisoners they were mailed to, you informed her that MIM Distributors must resend the newsletters at their own cost. Since then, numerous copies have been resent, and we have confirmed that at least 2 have been censored (see enclosed delivery confirmation).

I am cc'ing the wardens of Scotland Correctional Facility and New Hanover Correctional Center to notify them that their mailroom staff has not been following the decisions of your office. The two prisoners affected are:

WWW ZZZ #AAA
XXX YYY #BBB

We are requesting that your office deliver copies of Under Lock & Key 36 to the prisoners above in order to ensure delivery. We have found in the past that administrative intervention can help remedy these problems at the local level and hope you will assist us in this matter.

Sincerely,

I have yet to receive Under Lock & Key 38 (May 2014) whith I should've received, be in possession of right now. Nor have I been presented with a censorship notification form for ULK 38.

Assistant Director of Support Services
North Carolina Department of Corrections
Division of Prisons
4260 MSC
Raleigh, NC, 27699-4260
July 16, 2014

RE: Censorship incident occurred at Tabor Correctional Institution ? exclusion of publications sent to prisoner xxx

Dear Assistant Director,

I am writing this letter about what seems to be a censorship incident that recently occurred at Tabor Correctional Institution in Tabor City, North Carolina.

MIM Distributors sent the above mentioned prisoner an issue of a publication titled Under Lock & Key. Precisely MIM Distributors sent Mr. xxx:
Under Lock & Key, issue 38 on 05/30/2014

We recently learned from the prisoner (Mr. xxx) that he never received the publication listed above. Nor did he receive any determination of your Department explaining whether and why the publications were censored. MIM Distributors didn?t receive any notice of censorship determination either.

Your Division of Prisons Policy D.0100 states at sections D.0103 and D.0107 that respectively prisoners and publishers have to be notified of negative determinations and entitles both the sender and the recipient to appeal rejections of publications. The same Policy obligates the Warden to come to a determination and notify the prisoner within 7 days from the arrival of the publication.

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, neither Mr. xxx, nor MIM Distributors were notified of the censorship decision.

In refusing to provide notice and an opportunity to be heard to both the prisoner and the publisher, 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 know whether or not a determination has been made over the mentioned publications;
- in case of a negative determination, to be notified of the reasons of the censorship decision and to be offered a chance to appeal the exclusion of its materials.
- We also request that adequate notice be provided to the prisoner,
- and that future incoming mail from MIM Distributors to prisoners held at Tabor CI be handled in accordance with NCDPS policies and procedures, and federal and state law.

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

Sincerely,

MIM Distributors
P.O. Box 40799
San Francisco, CA 94140

CC: Affected parties

Warden/Superintendent
Tabor Correctional Institution
P.O. Box 730
Tabor City, NC 28463

I received your letter dated July 16, 2014 via legal mail. The TCI Mailroom Staff opened your letter in my presence on 7/24/2014. I still to this day do NOT have in my possession Under Lock & Key No. 36 nor No. 38. NOR have I ben presented with any censorship notification form of any kind for either of these issues.

Assistant Director of Support Services
North Carolina Department of Corrections
Division of Prisons
4260 MSC
Raleigh, NC, 27699-4260

August 7, 2014

RE: Censorship of Under Lock & Key No. 38 (May/June 2014)

Dear Assistant Director,

On July 30, 2014 we received a censorship determination from Fay Lassiter, Chair, Publication Review Committee regarding our publication titled Under Lock & Key No. 38 (May/June 2014). This newsletter was sent via USPS Presorted Standard mail to several prisoners currently held in different facilities of your Department.

The determination states that the publication was disapproved for delivery to the prisoners because page 4 of the issue allegedly violates North Carolina Division of Prisons policy D.0100. The specific reason cited is indicated at Reason .0109 D of the policy (?violence, disorder, insurrection or terrorist/gang activities against individuals, groups, organizations the government or any of its institutions?). The comment noted is ?Encourages insurrection and disorder.?

Page 4 of this particular issue of Under Lock & Key contains three articles focusing on the United Front for Peace in Prisons (UFPP). The UFPP is aimed to prevent infighting amongst prisoners, which is commonly known to be the primary source of violence within prisons. It is clearly not a threat to the safety of any person, and is in fact an attempt to quell the violence that runs rampant all across the prison system. This attempt is not without basis; unity around common principles has been proven historically to eliminate violence among differing groups, even in prisons. How can information on making peace within prisons present a threat to the security, good order, or discipline of the correctional system? Without doubt, if there were less prisoner-on-prisoner violence, it would relieve much of the occupational hazard for Correctional Officers and actually increase the security and good order of the correctional system, and personal self-discipline of the prisoners.

Additionally, in your Policy & Procedures D.0100 Publications Received/Posessed by Inmates, at .0103 (b), it states ?Descriptions and justifications should be specific enough to enable the Publication Review Committee (if there is an appeal) to turn to each listed page and immediately identify which words or images were disapproved and why.? I know this Prcedure relates to the notes the Warden makes when referring to publication to the Publication Review Committee. However, I am interested in which specific words or images on page 4 of Under Lock & Key No. 38 that the NCDPS finds offensive.

In addition to NCDPS Policy & Procedures, the U.S. Supreme Court has already stated in Procunier v. Martinez, 416, U.S. 396 (1974) and in Thornburgh v. Abbott, 490, U.S. at 416 n. 14 (1989), that prison officials violate the First Amendment when for reasons unrelated to legitimate penological interests they engage in ?censorship of . . . expression of ?inflammatory political, racial, religious or other views?.

Furthermore, the motivation alleged to support the censorship determination seems to be too vague and not sufficiently articulate to satisfy the threshold of adequate motivation established by the U.S. Supreme Court. Federal Courts have stated in several occasions that "Prison authorities cannot rely on general or conclusory assertions to support their policies." Walker v. Sumner (9th Cir. 1990) 917 F.2d 382, 385 and that "Unsupported security claims couldn't justify infringement on First Amendment rights." Crofton v. Roe (9th Cir. 1999) 170 F.3d 957

Lastly, the Committee?s letter of disapproval does not provide any indications as to the respect of the procedure described in section D.0104 of your Policy & Procedures ? Chapter D. Particularly, the Committee does not indicate whether each member of the Committee has indeed conducted an independent review, the result of the review, whether the Committee was overruled by the Chairperson and based on what reasons. The lack of the above information does not allow the publisher (MIM Distributors) to fully comprehend the motivation of the disapproval, implicitly depriving it of its right to appeal.

With the present letter MIM Distributors would like to:
(1) appeal the negative determination to censor the above-named publication;
(2) request the decision be reversed and the publication be delivered to the intended recipients as soon as possible;
(3) be provided with detailed minutes of the Publication Review Committee's independent reviews regarding this publication; and
(4) ask that the censorship of this publication be discussed at the next quarterly meeting between the Publication Review Committee and the Chief of Program Services to ensure its compliance with all NCDPS Policy & Procedures as well as United States law.

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

Sincerely,



CC: Affected parties

Assistant Section Chief
Support Services
4260 Mail Service Center
Raleigh, NC 27699-4260

17 May 2014

RE: censorship of Under Lock & Key No. 37

To Whom It May Concern,

I am requesting an independent review of the decision to censor Under Lock & Key 37. Notice of censorship was received by MIM Distributors on 15 May 2014 and I am writing you on 17 May 2014. I requested reviews of the decisions to censor the previous two issues of ULK in March and January, respectively, but my requests were not responded to.

In addition, MIM Distributors has gone so far as to remove all content from page 2 of the newsletter, since the NCDPS refused to indicate what content on that page was being used to justify censoring every issue of Under Lock & Key.

In the most recent incident Fay Lassiter has cited an article on fundraising and using money wisely and claims that it advocates ?Violence, disorder, insurrection or terrorist/gang activities against individuals, groups, organizations, the government or any of its' institutions.? I assert that this is a baseless accusation, and am requesting once again an explanation as to what content exactly your department finds to substantiate these claims in Under Lock & Key. MIM Distributors has acted in good faith to adjust the content of its mail to accommodate the restrictions of your department, but cannot continue to do so when all of its mail is censored without explanation.

Cynthia Bostic
Assistant Director of Support Services
North Carolina Department of Corrections
Division of Prisons
4274 MSC
Raleigh, NC, 27699-4274

Re: Approval of issue No. 36 of Under Lock & Key. Disapproval of No. 37 of Under Lock & Key.

June 24, 2014

Dear Assistant Director Bostic,

We received on June 13, 2014 your response to our appeal of the Publication Review Committee decision to disapprove Under Lock & Key Nos. 36 and 37. Despite the letter being dated June 4, 2014, it is in fact postmarked June 11, 2014.

Regarding Under Lock & Key No. 36:

As to the approval of issue No. 36, we do not understand the reason why we should resubmit the publication ?to be received by inmates?, as you state in your letter. As you are certainly aware, section D.0105(d) of your Policy and Procedures, Chapter D, prescribes that all disapproved publications are held by the Review Committee pending the completion of the publisher?s appeal procedure. The policy specifies that, upon completion of the procedure, disapproved publications are returned to the facility and that approved publications are also ?returned to the facility from which they were received?, obviously enough to be then distributed to the prisoners to which they were originally sent. It would make no sense to return to the facilities only the disapproved publications, while obligating the publisher, upon the positive completion of the appeal procedure, to re-send the approved ones, which incidentally and illegitimately burdens the publisher with additional costs for which they should not be responsible. We are therefore requesting that the all the copies of the approved publication be returned to the facilities from which they came from and be distributed to the prisoners to which they were originally sent.

Regarding Under Lock & Key No. 37:

As to the disapproval of No. 37, you quote some language on page three, second column, paragraph 1 as the reason for disapproval. First, the phrases you quote are actually on page 1, second column, paragraph 1 of the publication. Furthermore, we disagree with your statement that the language could ever constitute a reason for disapproval. The language that you quote simply reports some opinions that encourage prisoners to make use of their constitutional rights, such as beginning legal action in case of abuses, torts and so forth. We do not comprehend how stopping ordering packages (a perfectly legitimate right that all prisoner have) might encourage or support insurrection, as you surprisingly state. None of the quoted language can be brought back to any of the legitimate reasons for disapproval, as they are listed at section D.0109 of the Policy.

Furthermore, the motivation alleged to support the censorship determination seems to be too vague and not sufficiently articulate to satisfy the threshold of adequate motivation established by the U.S. Supreme Court. Federal Courts have stated in several occasions that "Prison authorities cannot rely on general or conclusory assertions to support their policies." Walker v. Sumner (9th Cir. 1990) 917 F.2d 382, 385 and that "Unsupported security claims couldn't justify infringement on First Amendment rights." Crofton v. Roe (9th Cir. 1999) 170 F.3d 957.

Based on the above considerations, we request that you follow your Department's own Policy and Procedure in the further handling of Under Lock & Key No. 36. We expect that the previously censored issues will be returned to the Warden/Superintendents with your decision to approve the publication, and then the held issues will be distributed to their intended recipients, the prisoners, at your Department's expense.

Secondly, we request that your censorship determination regarding issue No. 37 of Under Lock & Key be reversed and that the publication be allowed to prisoners held at any facility of your Department.

Lastly, we request to be sent an up-to-date copy of the Master List of Disapproved Publications.

Please, be advised that in case you persist on your position to disapprove No. 37 of Under Lock & Key, we will consider beginning legal action to protect and enforce our rights as publishers in this matter.

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

Sincerely,


MIM Distributors


CC: Affected parties

----

August 7, 2014
Communications Office
North Carolina Department of Public Safety
4201 Mail Service Center
Raleigh, NC 27699-4201

RECORDS REQUEST
Dear Records Request Officer:
Pursuant to the state open records act, I request access to and copies of the most recent edition of the Master List of Disapproved Publications, maintained by the Publication Review Committee of the North Carolina Department of Public Safety.
On July 30, 2014, Assistant Director of Support Services Cynthia Bostic informed my office that ?we do not distribute without cause, the Master List of Disapproved Publications.? However, the distribution company I provide legal assistance for has had several articles of mail censored to prisoners held in NCDPS facilities, including newsletters, magazines, and personalized letters. I find it easily justifiable why any entity should be granted access to this information, whether to track their own censorship or to be aware of the publications that are commonly censored within NCDPS so to avoid violating NCDPS policy or offending NCDPS staff.
These documents can be sent to me at the street address above. If there are copying fees you can also email the documents to [email protected], or notify me of the cost via email.
If my request is denied in whole or part, I ask that you justify all deletions by reference to specific exemptions of the act.
Thank you for your assistance.
Sincerely,