Tracking Prison Censorship in the United States

I would like to inform you that my Offender Grievance Manual has been denied/censored by my unit mailroom, this morning 3/15/19. I appealed the denial and will also be submitting a Step 1 and Step 2 grievance to protest the access to courts or denial of due process. The appeal receipt states that "outside persons desire to appeal submit a written appeal to the Director's Review Committee PO Box 99 Huntsville, TX 77343-0099. The appeal must reach the DRC within two (2) weeks of the notification date listed."

They conveniently denied my manual on a Friday. Noe the letter will take at least 4-5 days to reach you becuase the mail has ran for the day. So it won't leave until Mon-Tue. I am marking the envelope as "urgent attention." Hopefully you submit an appeal also in time. Please respond back letting me know you received my letter and the unit did not "misplace" it in processing.

MIM(Prisons)
PO Box 40799
San Francisco, CA 94140


May 21, 2019

Texas Department of Criminal Justice
Institutions Division
Director’s Review Committee
PO Box 99
Huntsville, TX 77342-0099


Re: Appeal of Censorship of Publication
TDCJ Offender Grievance Manual
Attempted delivery to XXXX, Polunsky Unit



To Whom It May Concern:

We are in receipt of a Director’s Review Committee Decision Form (hereinafter, “Form”), dated April 4, 2019 concerning the decision to uphold censorship of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice Offender Grievance Manual. We are the mailing entity listed on the form. We would note that we have never been provided notice of the censorship related to the Form as required by Federal case law.

Due process requires adequate notice of the reasons for censorship. Instructive is the District Court’s reasoning set forth in Prison Legal News v. Jones:

“Procunier demands that the publisher "be given a reasonable opportunity to protest" the censorship. Id. at 418. For an opportunity to be reasonable, the publisher must know of the grounds upon which the publication has been censored. See Henry J. Friendly, "Some Kind of Hearing", 123 U. Pa. L. Rev. 1267, 1280 (1975) (explaining that it is "fundamental" to due process that "notice be given . . . that . . . clearly inform[s] the individual of the proposed action and the grounds for it"). This knowledge component of due process does not turn on whether the publication is the first copy or a subsequent copy. What matters is the basis for censorship. If a subsequent impoundment decision is based on a different reason not previously shared with [the publisher], due process requires that [the publisher] be told of this new reason.” 126 F. Supp. 3d 1233, 1258 (N.D. Fla. 2015) (emphasis added).

It is an arbitrary and capricious use of power to censor the TDCJ’s own publication, the Offender Grievance Manual. As a government publication it is freely available and not subject to copyright protection. Further, since the TDCJ fails to provide the manual in its law libraries, we have a Constitutional right to distribute the manual. In plain English, the TDCJ’s censorship of its own manual relating to offender grievances is “asinine.” Is the TDCJ publishing offender manuals which do not comply with TDCJ censorship guidelines?

Your failure to provide notice of censorship as well as the arbitrary and capricious nature of the censorship is a clear violation of our Constitutional rights as the mailer of the manual.

We look forward to your reply concerning this censorship of the TDCJ Offender Grievance Manual and potential litigation concerning same.

Please govern yourself accordingly.

Sincerely,


MIM Publishers

(c) Publicatino contains material that a reasonable person would construe as written solely for the purpose of communicating information designed to achieve a breakdown of prisons through offender disruption such as strikes or riots.

Remarks: Reason C. Pages 1 & 6 contain information detailing prison strikes

Director's Review Committee
Polunsky Unit
3872 FM 350 S, Livingston, TX 77351-9699

July 28, 2014

This letter is to request an appeal of the rejection of the following books sent by MIM Distributors to XXX on January 21, 2014:

The Wretched of the Earth
How Europe Underdeveloped Africa
The CIA's Greatest Hits
From the Shorts of Africa (Chapter 1 of There is a River: The Black Struggle for Freedom in America)
Maoism and the Black Panther Party
Defend the Legacy of the Black Panther Party/BPP Newspaper Collection
The Right of Nations to Self-Determination
Dialectical and Historical Materialsm
Lessons from the Attica Prison Uprising 1971-91
Fundamentals of Political Economy
Labor Aristocracy, Mass Base of Social Democracy

Per your policy BP03.91 IVD: "The offender and the sender or addressee shall be provided a written statement of the disapproval and a statement of the reason for disapproval within three business days after receiving the correspondence. The notice shall be given on Correspondence Denial Forms. The offender shall be given a sufficiently detailed description of the rejected correspondence to permit effective use of the appeal procedures." In violation of this policy, we did not receive any notification of this mail rejection. We recently learned that Mr. XXX did not receive this mail.

Per this same policy, "An offender may receive reference books and other educational materials from volunteer organizations that operate the following types of programs: literacy and education, life skills, job skills, drug and alcohol rehabilitation, support group, arts and crafts, and any other program designed to aid offenders in the transition between confinement and society and to reduce recidivism, regardless of whether the organization provides those programs to offenders assigned to units operated by the TDCJ. These reference books and educational materials shall comply with content requirements contained in this policy." The books that were rejected met this requirement and do not violate any of the other requirements contained in the policy.

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, MIM Distributors was never notified of the censorship decision.

With this letter MIM Distributors requests
- To know whether a determination was made to censor this literature;
- 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,
- and that future incoming mail from MIM Distributors to prisoners held at Polunsky Unit be handled in accordance with TDCJ policies and procedures, and federal and state law.

Sincerely,

MIM Distributors
PO Box 40799, San Francisco, CA 94140

CC: Affected parties

Jennifer Smith
Program Supervisor
Mail System Coordinators Panel
Director's Review Cmte
Polunsky Unit
3872 FM 350 S, Livingston, TX 77351-9699

August 27, 2014

Dear Ms. Smith:

Thank you for your response to our letter concerning the package of reading material we sent to XX on January 21, 2014 which he never received. Mr. XX did not appeal this denial, you are correct, but this is because he was never informed that the package was denied. You say that "Polunsky Unit has no record of this offender receiving a package from MIM Distributors." Could you please let me know what procedure your mail room follows in logging mail that is received? I am certain that this package was sent to Mr. XX as we have records confirming this, and so I am unsure how it could have not arrived at Polunsky Unit.

Sincerely,

MIM(Prisons)

Director's Review Committee
PO Box 99
Huntsville, TX 77342-0099

August 13, 2014

RE: Censorship of Under Lock & Key to Mr. XX

Dear DRC,
On August 10 MIM Distributors received a letter from Mr. XX notifying us of the denial of four publications mailed to him: Under Lock & Key 23 (Nov 2011), 26 (May 2012), 27 (July 2012), and 28 (Sept 2012). Mr. XX forwarded us the publication review denial notifications.
Per your policy BP03.91 IVD: "The offender and the sender or addressee shall be provided a written statement of the disapproval and a statement of the reason for disapproval within three business days after receiving the correspondence. The notice shall be given on Correspondence Denial Forms. The offender shall be given a sufficiently detailed description of the rejected correspondence to permit effective use of the appeal procedures." In violation of this policy, we did not receive any notification of this mail rejection.

The U.S. Supreme Court has clearly stated that 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, MIM Distributors was not notified of the censorship decision or actually of any decisions that the Mailroom staff has made with regard to the publications listed above.

In refusing to provide notice and an opportunity to be heard to 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.

The denials are listed as non-appealable, but this is also counter to explicit Texas DOC policy (BP-03.91 (rev.3)): "V. B. Any offender, other correspondent, or sender of a publication may appeal the rejection of any correspondence or publication. They may submit written evidence or arguments in support of their appeal. An offender or a correspondent may appeal the placement of the correspondent on the offender?s negative mailing list. An offender or a correspondent may appeal to the DRC for reconsideration of the negative mailing list placement after six months." Based on this we formally request an appeal of this censorship.

The denial notifications state that these four publications were denied because a page within each one "contains hunger strike." This statement is nonsense, as it's not possible for a publication to contain a hunger strike. However, we will assume this is meant to indicate that these publications have information about a hunger strike. The reason for the denial is cited as: "(c) It contains material that a reasonable person would construe as written solely for the purpose of communicating information designed to achieve the breakdown of prisons through offender disruption such as strikes, riots or security threat group activity".

In your review of this censorship, please note that your own policy (BP-03.91 (rev.3)) states: "Publications shall not be rejected solely because the publication advocates the legitimate use of offender grievance procedures, urges offenders to contact public representatives about prison conditions, or contains criticism of prison authorities." In order to reject these publications for content, per your policy, you must demonstrate that the publication "contains material that a reasonable person would construe as written solely for the purpose of communicating information designed to achieve the breakdown of prisons through offender disruption such as strikes, riots, or STG activity". Although these publications do include articles calling on prisoners for a day of solidarity activity, this is specifically focused on building peace between prisoners. The call is issued by the United Front for Peace in Prisons, and asks prisoners to work together for 24 hours to cease all violence and prisoner-on-prisoner hostility while fasting or engaging in other peaceful demonstrations of solidarity. This is not something that could be construed to cause the breakdown of the prison, in fact it should have the effect of decreasing prisoner-on-prisoner violence in the long run, presumably a goal of the prison itself.

With this letter MIM Distributors requests
- Notification of all future denials of our mail to any prisoners in Texas
- Appeal of these specific instances of censorship
- An investigation into the erroneous denial of the prisoner's right to appeal this mail denial and report back on your determination and correction of this error on the part of the mail staff
- and that future incoming mail from MIM Distributors to prisoners held at Polunsky Unit be handled in accordance with TDCJ policies and procedures, and federal and state law.


Sincerely,

XXX, Legal Assistant
MIM Distributors
PO Box 40799
San Francisco, CA 94140

CC: Affected parties