MIM(Prisons) is a cell of revolutionaries serving the oppressed masses inside U.$. prisons, guided by the communist ideology of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism.
Violates Section III, D, #2 of Directive 4572, in that the objectionablviolates Guidelines II, D as it advocates and presents a clear and immediate risk of lawlessness, violence, anarchy or rebellion against government authority and is unacceptable
pg. 1 "Seize the Time on sep. 9"; 2. "How to join the United Front"; 3. "UFAO Links Uo with UFPP"; 5. "Is iULK TOO hardcore for the DOC"; 6. "Prisoner-led Study Groups Summary"; 7. "What's it all for?" and 13. "Attica Prisoner Remembers 1971" have been found unacceptable for reasons indicated below.
In the opinion of FMRC violates Guidelines II, D, as it advocates and presents a clear and immediate risk of lawlessness, violence, anarchy or rebellion against governmental authority and is therefore unacceptable.
Pages 2-7 and 12-14 violate Guideline II D of Directive 4572... Could incite lawlessness.. contains information regarding an inmate presently incarcerated in DOCS.[Download Documentation]
"Pages 7 & 9 The article violates guideline II C Guideline II E of Directive 4572 as it contains gang related material which could incite violence if introduced into a New York State Correctional Facility.
"Pages 4-8, 12 & 13 Violate Guideline II D of Directive 4572, The Media Review Committee feels that this material, if introduced in a correctional setting, could incite lawlessness."
MIM(Prisons) appeals denial, asks for explanation
Show Text
Central Office Media Review Committee
Building 2
1220 Washington Avenue
Albany, NY 12226-2050
5 August 2010
Dear Sir or Madam,
A publication titled Under Lock & Key issue 13 (March/April 2010) was sent to XXX at Clinton Correctional Facility. This publication was denied because pages 1, 2, 5, 6, 9 and 10 were censored by mailroom staff. MIM Distributors did not receive a notice as to why this publication was censored.
As you know, there must be a legitimate penological interest in the censorship of incoming mail. Therefore, we are requesting (1) a detailed explanation of why this publication was denied delivery to the above mentioned prisoner, (2) an investigation into the validity of the claim that it should be denied, and (3) prompt delivery of the publication Under Lock & Key issue 13. We look forward to your timely response concerning this matter.
Sincerely,
MIM Distributors
CC: Affected parties
08/24/2010
Director of Education upholds censorship via Facility Media Review Committee
12/02/2010
MIM(Prisons) responds to Director of Education
Show Text
Linda Hollmen
Director of Education
1220 Washington Ave
Albany, NY 12226-2050
3 December 2010
Dear Director Hollmen,
On August 24, 2010 you responded to a letter from MIM Distributors regarding the newsletter titled Under Lock & Key issue 13 (March/April 2010) (ULK 13) which was denied delivery to Mr. XXX, who is a prisoner at Clinton Correctional Facility. In this letter you said that the Facility Media Review Committee (FMRC) claimed that the newsletter violates Guideline D of the Media Review Directive 4572.
Media Review Directive 4572 is applicable statewide. Thus if Clinton CF determined that ULK 13 should be censored due to Guideline D, wouldn't it also follow that other institutions under New York DOCS would come to the same conclusion? Obviously this is not the case as people received ULK 13 in Auburn Correctional Facility, Five Points Correctional Facility, Great Meadow Correctional Facility, Sing Sing Correctional Facility, and Washington Correctional Facility, among others. How is it that the FMCR at Clinton CF has a differing opinion about how Media Review Directive 4572 should be applied than all other facilities in the NY DOCS system?
These other facilities are correct to avoid using Guideline D to censor ULK 13. Using this criteria to censor ULK 13 is to allege that this newsletter "advocates and presents a clear and immediate risk of lawlessness, violence, anarchy, or rebellion against governmental authority" which according to Directive 4572 "is unacceptable." I am having a difficult time understanding exactly what about ULK 13 is even remotely relevant to Guideline D. Considering the fact that neither you, the FMRC, or any other staff at Clinton CF has pointed to any specific part of ULK 13 that may "advocate and present a clear and immediate risk of lawlessness, violence, anarchy, or rebellion against government authority," it should be understandable that I am confused. Especially because this claim is completely false, and there is nothing in ULK 13 that violates Guideline D.
It is true that ULK 13 is a revolutionary newsletter. However, that fact alone does not present a "clear and immediate risk of lawlessness, violence, anarchy, or rebellion against governmental authority," one that would justify a violation of Mr. XXX's and MIM Distributor's First Amendment right to free speech. As an example, on page 2 of the newsletter in question, there is a box titled "What is MIM(Prisons)?" which clearly states "MIM(Prisons) and its publications explicitly oppose the use of armed struggle at this time in the imperialist countries (including the United States)." The content of the rest of the newsletter is much of the same.
In conclusion, I am requesting (1) an explanation of exactly what element of Under Lock & Key issue 13 applies to Guideline D of the Media Review Directive 4572, (2) a reversal of this decision made by Clinton CF mailroom staff and upheld by the Facility Media Review Committee, (3) and the immediate delivery of Under Lock & Key issue 13 to Mr. XXX. In addition, I would like to request (4) an investigation into why Clinton CF mailroom staff have a different application of Directive 4572 than any other prison in the NY DOCS system, and (5) the end to tampering with communications between MIM Distributors or MIM(Prisons) with prisoners held at Clinton CF.
I appreciate your effort in investigating this matter and your timely response.
Sincerely,
MIM Distributors
CC: Affected parties
12/21/2010
Director of Education parrots history, does not respond to MIM Distributors's arguments Download Documentation
Central Office Media Review Committee
Building 2
1220 Washington Avenue
Albany, NY 12226-2050
4 April 2010
Dear Sir or Madam,
On 16 March 2010 mailroom staff at Clinton Correctional Facility censored an unnamed document to Mr. xxx, who is a prisoner held at Clinton. Not only is there no indication as to what the letter was that was censored from Mr. xxx, but no explanation is given as to what was "unauthorized" about the material contained in the envelope. I have included with this letter a copy of the memorandum I am speaking of.
Lawfully, the prisoner and the sender of the material must be informed of what is being censored, and specifically why it is deemed a threat to the safety and security of the prison, prisoners, and staff. This censorship is therefore completely illegal.
As we are sure you are aware,
?When a prison regulation restricts a prisoner?s First Amendment right to free speech, it is valid only if it is reasonably related to legitimate penological interests.? Lindell v. Frank, 377 F.3d 655, 657 (7th Cir. 2004), citing Turner v. Safely, 482 U.S. 78, 89 (1987).
and,
"The court required that an inmate be notified of the rejection of correspondence and that the author of the correspondence be allowed to protest the decision and secure review by a prison official other than the original censor." Procunier v. Martinez, 416 U.S.396. 94 S.Ct 1800
This letter is to (1) request more information about this censorship, namely WHAT and WHY. We would also like to (2) appeal that decision made by mailroom staff. We do not think that there are valid grounds on which to make the claim that material from MIM Distributors is "unauthorized material."
We appreciate your assistance and look forward to your response.
page 11 violate guideline IIE of Directive 4572 as they allege that an inmate at a New York State Correctional Facility was being mistreated by New York State Department of Correction Staff. It is the opinion of the Media Review Committee that this article, if introduced into a correctional setting, could incite disobedience toward correctional personnel.
10/05/2009
Prisoner appealed to Central Office Media Review
10/09/2009
prisoner appeal denied
10/19/2009
Appeal to Central Office Media Review
Show Text
Central Office Media Review Committee
Building 2
1220 Washington Avenue
Albany, NY 12226-2050
19 October, 2009
Dear Sir/Madam,
This letter is regarding a history of censorship of mail sent by MIM Distributors to readers being held in Clinton Correctional Facility.
The most recent incident at Clinton was the censorship of Under Lock & Key Issue #10. Mr. XXXXXX F. XXXXXX reported to us that he received a notice that his copy was censored because of an article on page 11 about brutality by staff at Clinton. This brutality has been documented and corroborated by a number of people who were witnesses of these incidents, and as Mr. XXXXXX can attest without even having read the article, the violence continues.
The article in question calls for ?peace and solidarity?, yet it is deemed a threat because it reports on incidents that occurred. We can cite numerous court cases where it has been upheld that prison staff may not censor publications because they are critical of staff or because they encourage legal and legitimate recourse be taken by prisoners who are abused.
We are requesting that Under Lock & Key 10 be allowed to reach its intended recipients and that staff at Clinton be investigated for inciting disobedience and disorder by regularly brutalizing the people held there.
We hope you will take the time to address these very important matters,
Yo, I just want you to know that I received your letter and that I didn't get the MIM Theory #7. I am waiting for the grievance that I filed on 8/5/08 and I just wrote to the superintendent of programs about this. I got the manila envelope that they send the MIM Theory in, but the MIM Theory was not in the envelope, instead there was a pictorial sex book.
letter to Media Review Chairperson requesting explanation
Show Text
Sharon Benson-Perry, Media Review Chairperson
Clinton Correctional Facility
PO Box 2000
Dannemora, NY 12929-2000
January 7, 2007
Dear Sharon Benson-Perry:
In August I had sent you a response to your most recent letter to Us with a copy of the third issue of Our publication the Party Bulletin for your review. You had requested a copy so that it could be reviewed and (hopefully) approved to avoid the long standing policy of the Clinton mailroom of returning, and now apparently discarding, any mail from Our organization. I never received a response from you about the Party Bulletin that was sent.
Just recently it was brought to my attention that Issue 5 of the Party Bulletin was then censored at Clinton Correctional Facility in September of last year. We were never notified of this censorship, the materials were not even returned to Us. Is it now the policy of Clinton to destroy any mail from NAMP that is sent to prisoners at the facility?
I am requesting a response to this inquiry explaining the justification for censorship of Our publication at Clinton. We have also begun mailing Our literature delivery confirmation in hopes that staff will be encouraged to follow the standard administrative procedures in handling mail and media review procedures.
We are aware of certain individuals at Clinton who have taken it upon themselves to spearhead the campaign against prisoners who receive literature from Our organization. We hope it is within your ability to rein in these individuals so that they adhere to NYS DOCS policy as well as the United States Constitution.
Please respond at your earliest convenience so that we may resolve this issue.
lttr to Media Rev Chair reiterating violations of policy
Show Text
Sharon Benson-Perry, Media Review Chairperson
Clinton Correctional Facility
PO Box 2000
Dannemora, NY 12929-2000
February 3, 2008
Dear Sharon Benson-Perry:
Thank you for taking the time to respond to my previous letter and explaining why media is not always returned to the sender. However, a brief look at the handling of literature from NAMP at Clinton will make it clear where my confusion may have come from.
As you?ll recall, the first time I wrote you was in response a stack of copies of one of our newsletters that were all stamped ?Contents Prohibited? and sent right back to us. When I wrote to inquire about the reasoning for this you claimed that there was no record of the newsletters arriving or being censored.
In the most recent incident I wrote you about neither our office nor Mr XXXXXX XXXXXX, who we had sent our newsletter to, had received any notification of censorship, yet the newsletter was not received. Hence, my inquiry into whether it is now Clinton Correctional Facility?s policy to discard any mail from NAMP to avoid having to deal with justifying the censorship of our mail. Since it clearly is not, I would hope that this practice ends immediately.
In your January 22 letter you write, ?If a portion of reviewed material is disapproved, each individual inmate is notified and given an opportunity to have the material sent home, or redacted (if under 8 pages) and sent to him? Nothing is destroyed unless it is done so at the inmate?s request.? And ?media is sent to individual inmates and would not ordinarily be returned to sender unless the inmate so requests.? Our experience has shown none of these statements to be true in practice. So you can see why we had expressed the hope in our last letter that you can get Clinton CF staff to adhere to NYS DOCS policies. Seems that would make both of our lives a bit easier.
As you are aware, there is a lawsuit pending regarding the handling of our mail and prisoners in possession of our literature in the NYS DOCS, specifically Clinton Correctional Facility. We continue to document the unsubstantiated incidents of censorship that are occurring at Clinton as part of this case and hope that we can convince staff to adhere to department policies in the near future.
Media Review Committee
Clinton Correctional Facility
PO Box 2000
Dannemora, NY 12929-2000
July 15, 2007
Dear Sir/Madam:
This letter is in response to the censorship of 15 copies of Issue 3 of the New Afrikan Maoist Party?s Party Bulletin. These were mailed back to NAMP on June 27, 2007 without a notice from your office. They were merely stamped ?RTS Contents Prohibited.? This letter is to request a review of this decision and to further inquire as to the reasoning behind the decision to prohibit the publication.
As you may be aware, a member of Our movement is currently engaged in a legal battle with staff at Clinton Correctional Facility for allegedly being involved in an unauthorized organization because of his affiliation with NAMP. And you may also be aware that according to the DOCS rules, an outside organization does not fall under the guise of the rule forbidding involvement in ?unauthorized organizations.? This, of course, would be a violation of Our First Amendment rights to association.
This recent bit of censorship indicates to Us that Clinton Correctional Facility is continuing with its practice of censoring and persecuting members of Our movement. We hope that upon your review of this matter you will see that there is no reason to justify such actions.
We respectfully request your timely response to this matter,
Letter to MRC Chairperson including PB3 for review
Show Text
Sharon Benson-Perry, Media Review Chairperson
Clinton Correctional Facility
PO Box 2000
Dannemora, NY 12929-2000
August 26, 2007
Dear Sharon Benson-Perry:
I am in receipt of your letter dated July 30, which we received here on August 9th. In it you state that there is no record of the censorship of 15 issues of issue 3 of the Party Bulletin. The newsletters were originally mailed out on June 12. They were all mailed back to us on June 27th in a large manila envelope. Each issue was individually stamped with a standard rejection stamp bearing multiple options, with the option ?Contents Prohibited (photo)? checked, and the ?(photo)? part crossed out. Since there was no record of this action by the Media Review Board at Clinton Correctional Facility you were unable to respond to my request for a review of the decision and a further explanation for it.
Enclosed is a copy of the publication in question per your request. We are confident that you will find that the contents of the publication are not prohibited according to the regulations at Clinton. Please notify us of your decision so that we can resend the newsletters to our subscribers at your facility.
Media Review Committee
Clinton Correctional Facility
PO Box 2000
Dannemora, NY 12929-2000
July 15, 2007
Dear Sir/Madam:
This letter is in response to the censorship of 15 copies of Issue 3 of the New Afrikan Maoist Party?s Party Bulletin. These were mailed back to NAMP on June 27, 2007 without a notice from your office. They were merely stamped ?RTS Contents Prohibited.? This letter is to request a review of this decision and to further inquire as to the reasoning behind the decision to prohibit the publication.
As you may be aware, a member of Our movement is currently engaged in a legal battle with staff at Clinton Correctional Facility for allegedly being involved in an unauthorized organization because of his affiliation with NAMP. And you may also be aware that according to the DOCS rules, an outside organization does not fall under the guise of the rule forbidding involvement in ?unauthorized organizations.? This, of course, would be a violation of Our First Amendment rights to association.
This recent bit of censorship indicates to Us that Clinton Correctional Facility is continuing with its practice of censoring and persecuting members of Our movement. We hope that upon your review of this matter you will see that there is no reason to justify such actions.
We respectfully request your timely response to this matter,
Media Review Committee
Clinton Correctional Facility
PO Box 2000
Dannemora, NY 12929-2000
July 15, 2007
Dear Sir/Madam:
This letter is in response to the censorship of 15 copies of Issue 3 of the New Afrikan Maoist Party?s Party Bulletin. These were mailed back to NAMP on June 27, 2007 without a notice from your office. They were merely stamped ?RTS Contents Prohibited.? This letter is to request a review of this decision and to further inquire as to the reasoning behind the decision to prohibit the publication.
As you may be aware, a member of Our movement is currently engaged in a legal battle with staff at Clinton Correctional Facility for allegedly being involved in an unauthorized organization because of his affiliation with NAMP. And you may also be aware that according to the DOCS rules, an outside organization does not fall under the guise of the rule forbidding involvement in ?unauthorized organizations.? This, of course, would be a violation of Our First Amendment rights to association.
This recent bit of censorship indicates to Us that Clinton Correctional Facility is continuing with its practice of censoring and persecuting members of Our movement. We hope that upon your review of this matter you will see that there is no reason to justify such actions.
We respectfully request your timely response to this matter,
Media Review Committee
Clinton Correctional Facility
PO Box 2000
Dannemora, NY 12929-2000
July 15, 2007
Dear Sir/Madam:
This letter is in response to the censorship of 15 copies of Issue 3 of the New Afrikan Maoist Party?s Party Bulletin. These were mailed back to NAMP on June 27, 2007 without a notice from your office. They were merely stamped ?RTS Contents Prohibited.? This letter is to request a review of this decision and to further inquire as to the reasoning behind the decision to prohibit the publication.
As you may be aware, a member of Our movement is currently engaged in a legal battle with staff at Clinton Correctional Facility for allegedly being involved in an unauthorized organization because of his affiliation with NAMP. And you may also be aware that according to the DOCS rules, an outside organization does not fall under the guise of the rule forbidding involvement in ?unauthorized organizations.? This, of course, would be a violation of Our First Amendment rights to association.
This recent bit of censorship indicates to Us that Clinton Correctional Facility is continuing with its practice of censoring and persecuting members of Our movement. We hope that upon your review of this matter you will see that there is no reason to justify such actions.
We respectfully request your timely response to this matter,
Media Review Committee
Clinton Correctional Facility
PO Box 2000
Dannemora, NY 12929-2000
July 15, 2007
Dear Sir/Madam:
This letter is in response to the censorship of 15 copies of Issue 3 of the New Afrikan Maoist Party?s Party Bulletin. These were mailed back to NAMP on June 27, 2007 without a notice from your office. They were merely stamped ?RTS Contents Prohibited.? This letter is to request a review of this decision and to further inquire as to the reasoning behind the decision to prohibit the publication.
As you may be aware, a member of Our movement is currently engaged in a legal battle with staff at Clinton Correctional Facility for allegedly being involved in an unauthorized organization because of his affiliation with NAMP. And you may also be aware that according to the DOCS rules, an outside organization does not fall under the guise of the rule forbidding involvement in ?unauthorized organizations.? This, of course, would be a violation of Our First Amendment rights to association.
This recent bit of censorship indicates to Us that Clinton Correctional Facility is continuing with its practice of censoring and persecuting members of Our movement. We hope that upon your review of this matter you will see that there is no reason to justify such actions.
We respectfully request your timely response to this matter,
Media Review Committee
Clinton Correctional Facility
PO Box 2000
Dannemora, NY 12929-2000
July 15, 2007
Dear Sir/Madam:
This letter is in response to the censorship of 15 copies of Issue 3 of the New Afrikan Maoist Party?s Party Bulletin. These were mailed back to NAMP on June 27, 2007 without a notice from your office. They were merely stamped ?RTS Contents Prohibited.? This letter is to request a review of this decision and to further inquire as to the reasoning behind the decision to prohibit the publication.
As you may be aware, a member of Our movement is currently engaged in a legal battle with staff at Clinton Correctional Facility for allegedly being involved in an unauthorized organization because of his affiliation with NAMP. And you may also be aware that according to the DOCS rules, an outside organization does not fall under the guise of the rule forbidding involvement in ?unauthorized organizations.? This, of course, would be a violation of Our First Amendment rights to association.
This recent bit of censorship indicates to Us that Clinton Correctional Facility is continuing with its practice of censoring and persecuting members of Our movement. We hope that upon your review of this matter you will see that there is no reason to justify such actions.
We respectfully request your timely response to this matter,
![[Download Documentation]](https://www.prisoncensorship.info/docs/c3077.jpg){kind=link}
![[Download Documentation]](https://www.prisoncensorship.info/docs/c2021.jpg){kind=link}
![[Download Documentation]](https://www.prisoncensorship.info/docs/c1057.jpg){kind=link}
