Department of Corrections
ATTN: Library Service Administrator
501 S Calhoun St
Tallahassee, FL 32399-2500
April 27, 2015
RE: Impounding of MIM Theory 14 and What is MIM? pamphlet at Mayo Correctional Institution
Dear Ms. Morrison,
This letter is in response to a notification we recently received from Mayo Correctional Institution dated 4/17/2015 regarding the impounding of two magazines we mailed to Mr. XXX. The purpose of this letter is to appeal this decisions and have the magazines delivered to Mr. XXX.
The Supreme Court decision governing the First Amendment in prisons in the United States (Thornburgh, 490 U.S. at 416 n.14) is clear that regulations barring writings that "express 'inflammatory political, racial, religious or other views'" were not sufficiently "neutral" or "unrelated to the suppression of expression" to be legally allowable.
The Mayo C.I notice cites multiple articles on several pages as justifying the denial of the "What is MIM" pamphlet because "it depicts, describes or encourages activities which may lead to the use of physical violence or group disruption". Below are the pages cited for this censorship and a description of their contents.
p10 "encourages hate behavior" - contains an article about why the MIM (an organization that no longer exists) did not respond to questions about details of it's organization's membership, size or personal details.
p12 "encourages group disruption" - contains a critique of organizations that want to take up armed struggle now in this country (a critique!), and a discussion of the merits of working within mass organizations for political change.
p18 "encourages hate and discriminatory behavior as well as inciteful" - contains the historical constitution of the Maoist Internationalist Movement, which is a list of theoretical points about history and unity.
p23 "inciteful" - does not exist in this publication which is only 18 pages long.
We are left with the distinct impression that Mr. Jeffcoat, the Assistant Warden who signed off on this censorship, did not even bother to look at, much less read, the publication.
The notice regarding MIM Theory 14 claims that the publication is "dangerously inflammatory" and "depicts, describes or encourages activities which may lead to the use of physical violence or group disruption." This notification is equally embarrassing for it's lack of correspondence between the pages cited and any actual content on those pages.
Pg 73-74 "gangs" - this is not a description of content that is inadmissible, it is merely a word. In fact there is an article on those pages about gangs but it is a critique of the role of gangs in prisons which create violent conflicts behind bars and physically prevent members from leaving those organizations. What about this article is "not conducive to the rehabilitation of inmates."? Obviously having the word "gangs" is not sufficient to justify censorship.
p79-80 "dangerously inflammatory" - these pages contain a discussion of the term "political prisoner" and debate whether only those arrested for explicitly political crimes should be given this label. See the Thornburgh decision cited above for a clear repudiation of any legal standing the prison has for censoring this article.
p92-98 "Black Panther and gang related material" - here it seems, as with pages 73-74, the Assistant Warden of Mayo CI is under the mistaken impression that he can censor literature just because of the topics it addresses. This is clearly in contradiction to existing legal precedent.
p105-106 "encourages a book that instructs group disruption" - These pages have reviews of a few books:
• Malcolm X: Speeches at Harvard (by Malcolm X)
• Negro in the City (by Gerald Leinwand)
• Why We Can't Wait - Still! (by Martin Luther King, Jr.)
All three are widely available academic books. None are focused on "group disruption" unless this term is used to mean anything that describes issues of human rights and historical struggles against oppression. If that is cause for censorship we presume that Mayo C.I. does not allow any history books into the institution. Clearly this is a mistaken basis for censorship.
p129 "encourages a group that provides instruction on riots" - this page as a review of the now defunct publication "Prison Connections" which used to publish information about prisons in Massachusetts. Interestingly, this review focuses on criticizing both prisoner-on-prisoner violence and violence against the prison system and discusses other organizations that agree with this critique. As the primary focus of this publication review it's hard to see how anyone who actually read this page could have found information about a group that "provides instruction on riots".
Again, as with the other magazine, we have to conclude that Mr. Jeffcoat did not actually read the publication in question.
There is nothing in these publications that meet the criteria listed for censorship of publications. It may be the case that those reviewing this publication disagreed with the perspective presented in the articles listed, but the rejection of publications that one finds disagreeable is a violation of the Constitution of the United States, which your department is bound to uphold. The reasons given for denial of these publications does not pass the standard set by Thornburgh for censoring mail to prisoners.
I am requesting that you allow Mr. XXX to receive both impounded publications.
Sincerely,
