Tracking Prison Censorship in the United States

The response cites page 2, which is the same for every issue of Under Lock & Key. Therefore they reasoned that this content has already been deemed unacceptable in other issues of ULK, and therefore this issue not allowed per the "Statewide Master List of Disapproved Publications. This effectively institutes a ban on the publication, which is against the law.

Cynthia Bostic, Assistant Director
Support Services
4260 Mail Service Center
Raleigh, NC 27699-4260

28 May 2013

To Ms. Bostic,

This letter is to request a review of the decision to censor the March/April issue of Under Lock & Key, No. 31. The notification sent from Fay Lassiter justified this censorship with the reason ?A Code.? It seems she is claiming that the newsletter promotes criminal activity or breaking the law. Every issue of Under Lock & Key states on page 2, ?We encourage prisoners to join these battles
while explicitly discouraging them from engaging in
any violence or illegal acts.
? Unless you can find content contradicting this statement, I would argue that there is no justification for censoring this issue of Under Lock & Key.

We recently issued a records request from your office to demonstrate whether there is an independent review process and to justify the consistent decisions to uphold the censorship of our mail. We are still awaiting your response to this request issued over 2 months ago.


Thank you,

The policy on bartering and trading applies only on an inmate-to-inmate basis and makes no mention about transactions with outside organizations. In addition, just because the organization offered the option of trading work for study, does not mean that the inmate will exercise that option, much less choose to participate in the course offered.

Thornburgh v. Abbot, 490 U.S. 401: "Wardens may not reject a publication ' solely because its content is religious, philosophical, political, social, sexual or... unpopular or repugnant.'"

Cynthia Bostic, Assistant Director
Support Services
4260 Mail Service Center
Raleigh, NC 27699-4260

28 May 2013

To Ms. Bostic,

This letter is to request a review of the decision to censor the March/April issue of Under Lock & Key, No. 31. The notification sent from Fay Lassiter justified this censorship with the reason ?A Code.? It seems she is claiming that the newsletter promotes criminal activity or breaking the law. Every issue of Under Lock & Key states on page 2, ?We encourage prisoners to join these battles while explicitly discouraging them from engaging in any violence or illegal acts.? Unless you can find content contradicting this statement, I would argue that there is no justification for censoring this issue of Under Lock & Key.

We recently issued a records request from your office to demonstrate whether there is an independent review process and to justify the consistent decisions to uphold the censorship of our mail. We are still awaiting your response to this request issued over 2 months ago.


Thank you,