Tracking Prison Censorship in the United States

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

January 22, 2015

RE: Failure to notify publisher of censorship of Under Lock & Key

Dear Sir/Madam,

This letter is to document that once again MIM Distributors was not notified by the Florida Department of Corrections (FDOC) when its publications were impounded or rejected. I am requesting that the FDOC follow its own policies and respect the publisher's rights to Due Process under the Fourteenth Amendment (see Montcalm Publ'g Corp. v. Beck, 80 F.3d 105, 106 (4th Cir.), cert. denied, 519 U.S. 928 (1996)).

In September 2013, my colleague XX wrote to you regarding this same matter and Susan Hughes responded explaining that only one facility will notify the publisher of censorship. However, once again, no FDOC staff has notified MIM Distributors of the censorship of multiple issues of Under Lock & Key including:

Two items sent to YYY at Dade Correctional Institution
Under Lock & Key 40 mailed 9/26/2014
Under Lock & Key 41 mailed 12/10/2014

Two items sent to ZZZ at Suwanee Correctional Institution
Under Lock & Key 40 mailed 9/26/2014
Under Lock & Key 39 mailed 8/1/2014

I hope that you will honor my request for an appeal of this decision to censor, since the FDOC failed to notify MIM Distributors of the censorship and therefore the 15 days within receiving notice has not yet been passed.


Sincerely,



MIM Distributors
PO Box 40799
San Francisco, CA 94140

CC: Affected parties