Tracking Prison Censorship in the United States

March 16, 2013
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 all records of independent reviews of disapproved mail from MIM(Prisons)/MIM Distributors to prisoners held by the state of North Carolina from January 1, 2011 to the present time, including any documents related to the decisions made in each case.

These documents can be sent to me at the street address above. If there are copying fees you can also just email the documents to mimprisons@lavabit.com, 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,

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

17 March 2013

RE: review censorship

Dear Sir/Madam,

This letter is in response to the enclosed Letter to Publisher sent to MIM Distributors by Ms. Fay Lassiter. Over the last two years I've been writing to Lassiter and Ms. Cynthia Bostic to request, among other things, that they provide reasons for censoring mail from MIM Distributors. This recent letter from Lassiter states the reason as being, "A Code." As I've stated before, it is hard for us to address these issues when such meaningless explanations are put forth.

The letter does cite page 4 of Under Lock & Key No. 30. Based on the page numbers cited in the last couple notices we have received from your department it seems that pages containing the political ideology of MIM(Prisons) are being targeted for censorship. I would like to remind you of the law as established in 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'"

I am requesting a review of the enclosed censorship decision. As I do so, I hope this legal standard will be kept in mind. And I, once again, request that you provide citation of how the newsletter in question violates the safety and security of the institution if you do uphold Ms. Lassiter's judgement.


Thank you,

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

9 December 2012

RE: Blanket ban on mail at Marion CI

To Ms. Bostic,

I have not yet received any response to my letters to you dated November 12. However I did get copies returned to me from a Mr. XXXXXX XXXXXX (#XXXXXX), one of the affected parties being held in Marion Correctional Institution. It appears that the materials were censored and he was forced to pay to have them mailed back or destroyed. This corroborates other incidents I mentioned in my previous letter of petitions being censored at Marion CI with the justification that MIM Distributors is on the disapproved publication list.

As our staff has been over with you before, this list is used to ban the publication or mail from the organization, but is a one-year ban on the specific issue of a specific publication. So why is it that personal letters are being censored based on this list? We have not yet received a notice from your staff as to the reason for censoring the letters regarding censorship sent to Mr. XXXXXX, but if I may preemptively request a review of this decision as I cannot imagine what legitimate penological interest would allow you to censor these letters.


I would appreciate your taking the time to address this issue in a timely manner.

Thank you,