Tracking Prison Censorship in the United States

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


January 13th, 2012

RE: Censorship incident occurred at Lanesboro Correctional Institution ? exclusion of publications sent to prisoner XXX by MIM Distributors.

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

MIM Distributors sent the above mentioned prisoner three different issue of a publication titled Under Lock & Key. Precisely MIM Distributors sent Mr. XXX:
-Under Lock & Key, issue 21 on 07/28/2011
-Under Lock & Key, issue 22 on 09/21/2011
-Under Lock & Key, issue 23 on 11/18/2011

We recently learned from the prisoner (Mr. XXX) that he never received any of the publications 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 your mailroom staff to come to a determination 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. XXXXXX, nor MIM Distributors were notified of the censorship decision.

In refusing to provide notice and an opportunity to be heard to both the prisoner (Mr. XXX) and the publisher (MIM Distributors), 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.

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

Sincerely,

MIM Distributors

CC: Affected parties

Richard Neeley, Administrator
Lanesboro Correctional Institution
P.O. Box 280
Polkton, NC 28135

Cynthia Bostic, Assistant Director
Support Services
4274 Mail Service Center
Raleigh, NC 27699-4274

June 6, 2012

RE: Your April 11, 2012 letter regarding denial of several issues of Under Lock & Key to Mr. XXX

Dear Ms. Bostic,

Thank you for your response to my letter concerning the above-mentioned problem. I would like to contest two points made in your letter, both of which point to a similar concern.

Issue 1: Claim that Under Lock & Key No. 21 has not been denied in North Carolina

In your letter you state that "Under Locke [sic] & Key Issue # 21 has not been disapproved for inmate XXX or any other inmate in our system as of date." However, according to my records, MIM Distributors is aware of four separate facilities where prisoners' issues of Under Lock & Key No. 21 (July/August 2011) have never been delivered to them. Not Surprisingly, no notification was given to either MIM Distributors or the prisoners.

The facilities in question are Brown Creek Correctional Institution, Scotland Correctional Institution, Alexander Correctional Institution, and Lanesboro Correctional Institution. Notably, Lanesboro and Scotland Correctional Institutions both have histories of illegally censoring materials from MIM Distributors.

Issue 2: Claim that Under Lock & Key No. 22 and No. 23 were not received for Mr. XXX

In your letter you state that "We did not find any record of issue #22 or issue #23 of Under Locke [sic] & Key being received and disapproved for receipt by inmate XXX." Yet, according to my records, Under Lock & Key No. 22 (September/October 2011) was mailed via Presorted Standard mail with the USPS on September 21, 2011, and Under Lock & Key No. 23 (November/December 2011) was mailed with the same service, on November 18, 2011.

Conclusion

Since no notification was given to either the prisoners or MIM Distributors, you are correct that these incidents of censorship would not be recorded in your system. But tell me, then, what happened to them? I suspect you will point a finger at the USPS or MIM Distributors. Yet, MIM Distributors mailed these publications out via Standard Presorted mail with all the rest of them. Considering the culture of eagerness to censor Under Lock & Key amongst North Carolina prison administrators and mailroom staff, we wonder if the issues are not being simply thrown away upon arrival. What safeguards does your administration implement to ensure that mail is not thrown away by mailroom staff?

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

Sincerely,

MIM Distributors


CC: Affected parties