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

March 13, 2012

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

I am writing this letter about a censorship incident that recently occurred at Johnston Correctional Institution in Smithfield, North Carolina.

MIM Distributors sent the above mentioned prisoner two different issue of a publication titled Under Lock & Key. Precisely MIM Distributors sent Mr. XXX:
➢ 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. This letter is to inform you that MIM Distributors didn?t receive any notice of censorship determination about these two publications.

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. McCrae, 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. McCrae) 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
P.O. Box 40799
San Francisco, CA 94140

CC: Affected parties

Joseph B. Hall, Administrator
Johnston Correctional Institution
2465 US 70 West
Smithfield NC 27577

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

June 5, 2012

RE: Your April 12, 2012 letter regarding denial of Under Lock & Key No. 22 (September/October 2011) and No. 23 (November/December 2011)to Mr. XXX

Dear Ms. Bostic,

Thank you for your response to my letter concerning the above-mentioned issue. In your letter from April 12, 2012, you stated that a review was conducted of Under Lock & Key No. 22 and No. 23 even though our appeal deadline had expired. We appreciate that you conducted another review. Nonetheless, we are disappointed that you came to the same determination to censor these publication.

With this letter we would like to request statistics or further information on the frequency of the Publication Review Committee (PRC) to uphold or overturn the initial censorship decision made by prison mailroom staff. The reasons offered by the PRC to allow censorship are so superficial, it is impossible to tell whether a review was conducted at all. In your most recent letter you simply stated "we conducted a review. Resultantly, the Publication Review Committee's disapproval of these two publications is upheld..." Really? What did the review entail?

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

Sincerely,

MIM Distributors


CC: Affected parties