Tracking Prison Censorship in the United States

Deputy Director, Division of Operations
Virginia Department of Corrections
P.O. Box 26963
Richmond, VA 23261
September 12, 2014
Dear Deputy Director,

I am writing to appeal the censorship of several publications which were allegedly sent from MIM Distributors to prisoners held by the Virginia Department of Corrections (VDOC). I say ?allegedly? because I am not aware of when or to whom these publications were mailed. Unfortunately the letter we received to notify us of the censored publications does not contain this information.

With this letter, I would like to request:
1) An independent review of the decision to censor all the items listed on the enclosed letter from your Department dated August 29, 2014.
2) In case of negative determination, to be notified of precisely why the Department has decided to uphold the censorship of the listed publications.
3) To be notified of (a) when these publications were received, (b) at what facilities, and (c) to whom they were addressed.

I apologize in the delay in getting this appeal letter out to you. I understand that my letter of appeal is supposed to be sent within 15 calendar days from the date on the disapproval letter. Unfortunately, although the letter to MIM Distributors notifying of disapproval is dated August 29, 2014, the envelope is not postmarked until September 2, 2014. I hope you will take this into consideration.

Sincerely,


CC: Affected parties

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

Benjamin Wright, Warden
River North Correctional Center
329 Dell Brook Lane
Independence, VA 24348

July 29, 2014

RE: Censorship of Under Lock & Key and other mail to Mr.XXX

Dear Warden Wright,

Recently MIM Distributors received a copy of the disapproved publications list from your prison. It includes multiple issues of our newsletter Under Lock & Key and our theory journal MIM Theory with reasons that are completely unrelated to the content of the publications in question. Specifically you have on the disapproved list:

Under Lock & Key 23 for "Oral sex"
Under Lock & Key 24 for "penetration"
Under Lock & Key #15 for "penetration"
Under Lock & Key #20 for "penetration"
Under Lock & Key #25 for "penetration"
Under Lock & Key #26 for "Sex Acts"
Under Lock & Key #27 and #28 for "penetration"
Under Lock & Key #33 for "Newspaper depicts the US prison system negatively and promotes disruption"
MIM Theory #9 for no reason given
MIM Theory #11 for "Sexual descriptions, multiple sex partners, oral sex"
MIM Theory #13 for "Spanish"

In spite of many of these including page numbers supposedly containing the material in question, we can state definitively that there is no oral sex, penetration, sex acts or anything related to sex in Under Lock & Key or MIM Theory. And MIM Theory #13 is not in Spanish, although there is nothing in the VA prison rules preventing prisoners from receiving Spanish material. The only claim on this list that is related to the actual content in Under Lock & Key is that the newspaper depicts the US prison system negatively. While this is accurate, it does not constitute a reason for censorship, rather it appears to be a point of political disagreement with our publication. The newspaper does not promote disruption, and in fact we have found that readers of Under Lock & Key are more likely to resolve conflicts peacefully and advance their education while in prison.

Further, additional issues of Under Lock & Key have been rejected for illegitimate reasons:

Under Lock & Key 37 was rejected on 4/11/2014: "Material, documents, or photographs that emphasize depictions or promotions of violence, disorder, insurrection, terrorist, or criminal activity in violation of state or federal laws or the violation of the Offender Disciplinary Procedure"

A introductory study group letter was rejected on 4/10/2014: "Material, documents, or photographs that emphasize depictions or promotions of violence, disorder, insurrection, terrorist, or criminal activity in violation of state or federal laws or the violation of the Offender Disciplinary Procedure" and "Material whose content could be detrimental to the offender rehabilitative efforts or the safety or health of offenders, staff, or others based on the offender's specific criminogenic needs."

A letter explaining how to form a study group, and an invitation to join a study group were rejected on 1/22/2014: "Material whose content could be detrimental to the offender rehabilitative efforts or the safety or health of offenders, staff, or others based on the offender's specific criminogenic needs."

We were never notified of these mail rejections until Mr. XXX forwarded us the notifications of disapproval.

We request the following actions:
- Investigation into the above listed publications on the disapproved publications list to determine what material they contain that justifies this disapproval,
- Notification of the specific findings of this investigation.
- Notification of all MIM Distributors rejected mail directly from the prison upon rejection
- Appeal the censorship of all of the above listed publications and letters

I appreciate your consideration, and anticipate your response.

Sincerely,


MIM Distributors
PO Box 40799
San Francisco, CA 94140

CC: Affected parties

MIM(Prisons) forwarded protest letter to: Publications Review Committee, Virginia Department of Corrections, PO Box 26963, Richmond, Virginia 23261.

Louis B. Cei, Chair
Publications Review Committee
Virginia Department of Corrections
PO Box 26963
Richmond, VA 23261

September 10, 2014

Mr. Cei,

Thank you for your letter dated August 26 following up on our correspondence about MIM Distributors literature sent to Mr. X.

We appreciate your assurance that PRC will mail us a notification informing us of disapproved items. We look forward to a timely notification of these issues in the future. It is not clear from your letter whether we will receive a letter from the PRC covering the items for which we never received notification in the past. If that was not your intent, we request that these be sent to afford us the opportunity to request independent review and appeal the denials.

You mention that several of our publications are on the Master Disapproved list for reasons that do not match with the list we received from Mr. X. Mr. X received his list from the prison so there is apparently some incorrect information circulating and being misapplied by staff. We hope you will be able to clear up this confusion and ensure VA policies regarding mail will be applied appropriately.

Please forward us a copy of this master disapproved list so that we can have a complete list of our publications that have been censored and the reasons for this. Mr. X is being denied our literature for reasons of sex acts or Spanish content, which your letter confirms is incorrect. We will be able to use your Master List to appropriately appeal the denials. Similarly, we would like to know which MIM Theory journals are approved for offenders to purchase as you indicated that 5 of them are on the list as approved.

In summary we are requesting the following actions:
- Formal notification of all past disapproved mail items so that we will have the ability to request independent review
- Delivery to Mr. X of the publications he was denied that are not on the list as denied by the PRC
- A copy of the Master Disapproved list or complete listing of all MIM(Prisons) mail that is on that list and the reasons for inclusion
- A list of all MIM literature on the approved master list

Thank you for your time in addressing this matter.

Sincerely,

Legal Assistant, MIM(Prisons)
PO Box 40799
San Francisco, CA 94140

cc: affected parties

Director's Review Committee
Polunsky Unit
3872 FM 350 S, Livingston, TX 77351-9699

July 28, 2014

This letter is to request an appeal of the rejection of the following books sent by MIM Distributors to XXX on January 21, 2014:

The Wretched of the Earth
How Europe Underdeveloped Africa
The CIA's Greatest Hits
From the Shorts of Africa (Chapter 1 of There is a River: The Black Struggle for Freedom in America)
Maoism and the Black Panther Party
Defend the Legacy of the Black Panther Party/BPP Newspaper Collection
The Right of Nations to Self-Determination
Dialectical and Historical Materialsm
Lessons from the Attica Prison Uprising 1971-91
Fundamentals of Political Economy
Labor Aristocracy, Mass Base of Social Democracy

Per your policy BP03.91 IVD: "The offender and the sender or addressee shall be provided a written statement of the disapproval and a statement of the reason for disapproval within three business days after receiving the correspondence. The notice shall be given on Correspondence Denial Forms. The offender shall be given a sufficiently detailed description of the rejected correspondence to permit effective use of the appeal procedures." In violation of this policy, we did not receive any notification of this mail rejection. We recently learned that Mr. XXX did not receive this mail.

Per this same policy, "An offender may receive reference books and other educational materials from volunteer organizations that operate the following types of programs: literacy and education, life skills, job skills, drug and alcohol rehabilitation, support group, arts and crafts, and any other program designed to aid offenders in the transition between confinement and society and to reduce recidivism, regardless of whether the organization provides those programs to offenders assigned to units operated by the TDCJ. These reference books and educational materials shall comply with content requirements contained in this policy." The books that were rejected met this requirement and do not violate any of the other requirements contained in the policy.

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, MIM Distributors was never notified of the censorship decision.

With this letter MIM Distributors requests
- To know whether a determination was made to censor this literature;
- 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 Polunsky Unit be handled in accordance with TDCJ policies and procedures, and federal and state law.

Sincerely,

MIM Distributors
PO Box 40799, San Francisco, CA 94140

CC: Affected parties

Jennifer Smith
Program Supervisor
Mail System Coordinators Panel
Director's Review Cmte
Polunsky Unit
3872 FM 350 S, Livingston, TX 77351-9699

August 27, 2014

Dear Ms. Smith:

Thank you for your response to our letter concerning the package of reading material we sent to XX on January 21, 2014 which he never received. Mr. XX did not appeal this denial, you are correct, but this is because he was never informed that the package was denied. You say that "Polunsky Unit has no record of this offender receiving a package from MIM Distributors." Could you please let me know what procedure your mail room follows in logging mail that is received? I am certain that this package was sent to Mr. XX as we have records confirming this, and so I am unsure how it could have not arrived at Polunsky Unit.

Sincerely,

MIM(Prisons)

Publications Review Committee
Virginia Department of Corrections
PO Box 26963
Richmond, VA 23261

August 13, 2014

RE: Censorship of Under Lock & Key #38 and other mail to Mr. XXX

Dear Publications Review Committee,

Recently MIM Distributors was informed by Mr. XXX that Under Lock & Key May/June 2014 (#38) was disapproved by the Publication Review Committee. We did not receive any notification of this censorship. You are required, by Virginia Inmate Mail policy, to notify us of these rejections: "If opened, the unauthorized correspondence will be returned directly to the sender if known, with a written explanation for disapproval." (see https://vadoc.virginia.gov/offenders/prison-life/mail.shtm)

Further, court cases have upheld this requirement. In particular Montcalm Publishing Co. v. Beck, 80 F.3d105 (4th Cir. 1996) includs the following ruling regarding Virginia Department of Corrections Operating Procedure: "We hold that publishers are entitled to notice and an opportunity to be heard when their publications are disapproved for receipt by inmate subscribers."

We were never notified of this mail rejection, a clear violation of policy.

We request the following actions:
- A copy of the official inmate mail policy for the VA DOC
- Notification of all MIM Distributors rejected mail directly from the prison upon rejection
- Appeal the censorship of all Under Lock & Key May/June 2014

I appreciate your consideration, and anticipate your response.

Sincerely,


MIM Distributors

CC: Affected parties