Tracking Prison Censorship in the United States

Wayne C. McCabe, Warden
Lieber Correctional Institution
136 Wilborn Avenue
P.O. Box 205
Ridgeville, SC 29472

21 November 2010

Dear Warden McCabe,

This letter is to protest the decision and procedure of mailroom staff at Lieber Correctional Institution. In the past several months there have been multiple instances of censorship of mail coming from MIM Distributors to prisoners at Lieber CI, which I will outline below, but I am primarily concerned with the most recent incident: blind censorship of the newsletter Under Lock & Key issue 16 (September/October 2010), which was returned, unopened, with "Ref" or "Refused" written on the outside.

Why exactly were these pieces of mail refused delivery? Why wasn't MIM Distributors, the publisher and distributor of Under Lock & Key, notified of the reason this newsletter was refused? Were the intended recipients notified of this censorship, and offered a chance to appeal the decision, as required by United States law?

I do not believe there is a valid penological reason why Under Lock & Key issue 16 should be denied delivery at Lieber CI, and I would like to appeal this erroneous decision made by mailroom staff to a higher and independent authority than the original censor.

In addition to the censorship of Under Lock & Key issue 16, on multiple occasions, the mailroom staff at Lieber CI has refused delivery of a 6 page (3 sheet) letter to prisoners held there. The contents of this letter is an overview of the prisoner support services offered by MIM(Prisons). In May 2010 it was returned stamped "Unauthorized Item," unopened. In March 2010 it was returned with a notification stating that "newsletter or newspaper not allowed in max," yet this introductory letter is neither a newsletter nor a newspaper. In December 2009 this same introductory letter was returned, citing "SCDC Policy PS-10.08 'Inmate Correspondence Privileges,'" but there was no indication of what about this letter was in violation of Policy PS-10.08.

Based on the examples I outlined above regarding the nonsensical censorship of the introductory letter about MIM(Prisons), I would also like to request that you retrain your mailroom staff to properly handle mail coming from MIM Distributors in the future.

I appreciate your effort in investigating this matter and your timely response.

Sincerely,

MIM Distributors

CC: Affected parties