Tracking Prison Censorship in the United States

August 21, 2024

ATTN: Jeremy Bean, Warden
High Desert State Prison
PO Box 650
Indian Springs, NV 89070-0650

Missing Mail

To Mr. Bean:

We are MIM(P), a publisher and distributor of literary materials for prisoners in the United States. We recently sent a number of publications to one XXXXXX Travis XXXXXX #XXXXXX residing at your facility which Mr. XXXXXX reported to us that he did not receive. The items in question are:

--MIM Theory 11
--Introduction to the Labor Aristocracy study pack
--Grievance Campaign Information

Seeing as we sent these items to your facility to be delivered to Mr. XXXXXX, the only possible explanation as to why they were not delivered is because the staff in the mail room at your facility decided to withhold them for some reason. However, neither ourselves nor Mr. XXXXXX received any notice about these materials being rejected. This is in direct conflict with NV-DOC regulation 750.06 which states that “if any item of mail addressed to an inmate is rejected for any reason the inmate shall receive written notice that describes the rejected item [and] states the reason it was rejected.” The regulation goes on to state that “where an item of mail addressed to an inmate is rejected for any reason, a copy of the written notice given to the inmate shall be given to the sender.”

This policy of the NV-DOC is backed up by decades of case law regarding this issue which established that such a lack of notice of censorship is a violation of our due process rights as publishers and distributors of literary materials. Please refer to Montcalm Publishing Corporation v. Beck, 80 F.3d 105 (4th Cir. 1996). Furthermore, we would remind you that as the publisher, we have a First Amendment right to correspond with prisoners, which is violated when our mail is unjustly censored. See Thornburgh v. Abbott, 490 U.S. 401, 407-08 (1989). The institutional safeguards put in place by NV-DOC regulation 750 are intended to uphold these findings of the courts and prevent such flippant abuses of power (or worse, gross neglect of duties) as seen here.

We request the decision to withhold the listed materials be vacated and the publications be forwarded to Mr. XXXXXX. Failing to do this, we request that you send us adequate notice of the censorship as you are required to provide by law. Failure to provide appropriate notice and adherence to your policies may result in legal action.

Please govern yourself accordingly.


Sincerely,