Tracking Prison Censorship in the United States

Department of Corrections
ATTN: Library Service Administrator
501 S Calhoun St
Tallahassee, FL 32399-2500

19 April 2014

RE: Impounding of Under Lock & Key No. 37 at FSP & Blackwater River CF

Dear Ms. Morrison,

This letter is in response to notifications received from both Florida State Prison and Blackwater River Correctional Facility notifying MIM Distributors of the impounding of Under Lock & Key No. 37. The purpose of this letter is to appeal those decisions and have those newsletters delivered to their intended recipients.

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 Florida State Prison notice cites the "Entire booklet" as "advocat[ing] or encourag[ing] riot, insurrection, disruption of the institution, violation of department or institution rules." There is no content advocating any such actions within Under Lock & Key No. 37, nor does Assistant Warden D. Jackson cite any examples of such content. The blanket rejection of publications that one finds disagreeable is a violation of the Constitution of the United State, which your department is bound to uphold.

The Blackwater River notice cites an article on fundraising and an article on prisoners that are not eating food from the commissary as presenting "a threat to the security, good order, or discipline of the correctional system or the safety of any person." Certainly no ones safety is being threatened in either of these benign activities. Stating these articles are "inflammatory" does not pass the standard set by Thornburgh for censoring mail to prisoners.

I am requesting that you allow all individuals held by FDOC to receive Issue 37 of Under Lock & Key.