Tracking Prison Censorship in the United States

October 5, 2024

ATTN: Mail Room
Eastern Oregon Correctional Institution
2500 Westgate
Pendleton, OR 97801

Re: Mail Violation Notice

To Whom It May Concern:

We are in receipt of your Mail Violation Notice for the publication MIM Theory United Front which was sent by us to one ***. A copy of this notice, which we received on September 27, 2024, is enclosed within.

First and foremost, we would like to address the claim on the attached notice that we are not allowed to seek administrative review for your censorship of the publication. This is patently and unambiguously unconstitutional as it is a direct violation of our Fourteenth Amendment procedural due process rights as laid out by the Supreme Court over 50 years ago in Procunier v. Martinez, 416 U.S. 396 (1974). This is plainly stated when the Supreme Court held that authors and publishers corresponding with prisoners must “be given a reasonable opportunity to protest” decisions to censor their correspondences. If your facility intends to blatantly violate well-established constitutional case law, we expect you to respond with the legal justifications as to why you believe this is acceptable.

Secondly, we strongly disagree with the claim that the censored publication could ever “pose a threat” or “be detrimental” to “legitimate penological objectives.” The publication in question is a historical political document which does not advocate any riotous or illegal activities, so we cannot imagine how this determination was made.

Furthermore, we hold that this rationale is so unacceptably vague as to enable the Oregon DOC to arbitrarily censor whatever material it desires. Please refer to Crofton v. Roe, 170 F.3d 957 (9th Cir. 1999) where the courts found that, when censoring publications on the basis of security concerns in prisons, it is unacceptable when authorities do not, “attempt to explain in what way publications, by any particular characteristics of their own, threaten security or contribute to other problems the state asserts the regulations are designed to avoid.” Your censorship notice lacks any explanation of how the censored publication specifically could “be detrimental to legitimate penological objectives” and as such it is impossible for us to adequately and comprehensively dispute such a claim.

We request the decision to withhold MIM Theory United Front be vacated and the publication be forwarded to ***. Failure to provide appropriate notice and adherence to your policies may result in legal action.

Please govern yourself accordingly.


Sincerely,

****