Tracking Prison Censorship in the United States

Code D
Page Number(s): 24
Reason for Disapproval: Survey promotes possible disorder against prison security

Director of Rehabilitative Programs and Services
North Carolina Department of Public Safety, Prisons
MSC 4221
Raleigh, NC 27699-4221

14 January 2017

RE: censorship of Under Lock & Key No. 53

Dear Sir/Madam,

This is in response to a Letter to Publisher from Doug Pardue, notifying MIM Distributors of the disapproval of Under Lock & Key No. 53, Nov/Dec 2016. The reason given was that the “Survey [on p.24] promotes possible disorder against prison security.”

The survey in question is merely asking prisoners to report facts about their facility regarding the use of solitary confinement. How this could be a legally justifiable reason to censor MIM Distributors' mail is beyond me. I am requesting a review of this decision and that you please deliver the newsletter in question to the subscribers held by NCDPS.

Thank you for your time and attention in this matter,

Director of Rehabilitative Programs and Services
North Carolina Department of Public Safety, Prisons
MSC 4221
Raleigh, NC 27699-4221

23 September 2016

RE: censorship of Under Lock & Key No. 51

Dear Sir/Madam,

This letter is in response to the Letter to Publisher, dated 2 September 2016, and received on 9 September 2016, from Publication Review Committee Chair, Doug Pardue. Once again, Mr. Pardue claims that Under Lock Key "encourages insurrection and disorder." For the latest issue he cites the article "Sept. 9 Day of Peace and Solidarity 2016" on page 1 of issue 51.

The Day of Peace and Solidarity is the opposite of violence and disorder.

As I reiterate with your office every two months, Under Lock & Key explicitly opposes prisoners taking up violence or insurrection in every issue. The continued claims that ULK promotes insurrection and disorder in every issue do not seem connected to the objectives of your department.

I am requesting that upon review of this incident that you will keep ULK 51 off of the list of banned publications, and deliver the copies that we have mailed to each subscriber held in your institutions. Recent decisions by your office to overturn censorship by the Publication Review Committee seem to have no practical application when subscribers still do not receive their issues of Under Lock & Key.

Before the official notice was sent to MIM Distributors, this subscriber received notification of the disapproval and filed an appeal. People at this prison recently staged a hunger strike and successfully negotiated to be able to receive the publications they want. But the struggle continues.

Director of Rehabilitative Programs and Services
North Carolina Department of Public Safety, Prisons
MSC 4221
Raleigh, NC 27699-4221

17 July 2016

RE: censorship of Under Lock & Key No. 50

Dear Sir/Madam,

This letter is in response to the Letter to Publisher, dated 5 July 2016, from Publication Review Committee Chair, Doug Pardue. It states that Under Lock Key issue 50 has been censored for “encourages insurrection and disorder” on p.8.

The article on page 8 discusses the history of the Black Panther Party and in particular its practice of patrolling the police in the Black community as a means of protecting people from potentially deadly interactions, a problem that continues to plague our society today. In no part of the analysis does it encourage insurrection or disorder within the institutions of the NCDPS. It promotes order in the oppressed communities.

As I reiterate with your office every two months, Under Lock & Key explicitly opposes prisoners taking up violence or insurrection in every issue. The continued claims that ULK promotes insurrection and disorder in every issue do not seem connected to the objectives of your department.

I am requesting that upon review of this incident that you will keep ULK 50 off of the list of banned publications, and deliver the copies that we have mailed to each subscriber held in your institutions.

a prisoner at Marion reports that comrades from different organizations came together to address the ongoing censorship problem with the administration, who promised changes. The prisoners are still waiting.

Cynthia Bostic, Assistant Director
Support Services
4260 Mail Service Center
Raleigh, NC 27699-4260

9 December 2012

RE: Blanket ban on mail at Marion CI

To Ms. Bostic,

I have not yet received any response to my letters to you dated November 12. However I did get copies returned to me from a Mr. XXXXXX XXXXXX (#XXXXXX), one of the affected parties being held in Marion Correctional Institution. It appears that the materials were censored and he was forced to pay to have them mailed back or destroyed. This corroborates other incidents I mentioned in my previous letter of petitions being censored at Marion CI with the justification that MIM Distributors is on the disapproved publication list.

As our staff has been over with you before, this list is used to ban the publication or mail from the organization, but is a one-year ban on the specific issue of a specific publication. So why is it that personal letters are being censored based on this list? We have not yet received a notice from your staff as to the reason for censoring the letters regarding censorship sent to Mr. XXXXXX, but if I may preemptively request a review of this decision as I cannot imagine what legitimate penological interest would allow you to censor these letters.


I would appreciate your taking the time to address this issue in a timely manner.

Thank you,

Cynthia Bostic, Assistant Director
Support Services
4260 Mail Service Center
Raleigh, NC 27699-4260

19 November 2012

To Ms. Bostic,

This letter is in response to a "Letter To Publisher" from Fay Lassiter dated October 30, 2012. In a previous communication you state that it is overly burdensome to review censorship decisions more than fifteen days after the notice. Trust me, this is quite burdensome for us as well, and we do not have a paid full time staff to address these issues as your agency does. So I apologize for the delayed response, and will respond as soon as I am able in the future. But as you can see by checking the USPS Certified Mail tag on the letter, our mail retriever did not receive this letter until last week. I was holding the enclosed letter dated 12 November 2012 until I was able to get ahold of the most recent letter as I wanted my letter to be relevant to the most recent information.

All that said, such time restraints from your office do not preclude you from following the law in handling the mail between outside parties and the prisoners being held by your agency. I am requesting an independent review of the enclosed decision to censor Under Lock & Key No. 28. Once again there is no "Reason for Disapproval" listed on page 2 of the notice. Page 1 cites pages 2 and 13. Page 2 is merely a description of what Under Lock & Key and MIM(Prisons) are that is printed in each issue of the newsletter. This statement reads in part, "We encourage prisoners to join these battles while explicitly discouraging them from engaging in any violence or illegal acts." So I do not understand how this statement violates your mail rules.

Ms. Lassiter seems to have an issue with page 13 because it criticizes decisions she made regarding the censorship of previous issues of Under Lock & Key. We are very familiar with Ms. Lassiter's personal opinions on Under Lock & Key and whether or not prisoners should read it. But we hope that you will agree with us that she does not have the discretion to decide what prisoners in North Carolina are allowed to ready, only to apply the "legitimate penological interests" standard. Thornburgh v. Abbott, 490 U.S. 401, clearly asserted that you cannot censor things you find politically repugnant. Furthermore, Johnson v. Raemisch, 557 F.Supp.2d 964 (2008) directly addressed the issue of state agencies censoring materials that are critical of their agency claiming it was a "security threat." The courts are clear that this type of behavior is against federal laws.

On this same subject I have recently been notified by prisoners in Marion that a petition addressed to James French is being censored there because "MIM Distributors is on the disapproved publication list." I know you know this is not legal as we have had long discussions with you about the disapproved publication list in North Carolina, and how it cannot be used to censor any mail from an organization or company. You should also be aware that prisoners have a right to "petition the government for a redress of grievance," which was the purpose of the petition.

Please let me know whether or not you agree with my interpretation of the law described above and whether you will allow prisoners in North Carolina to receive Under Lock & Key No. 28.


Thank you,

Cynthia Bostic, Assistant Director
Support Services
4274 Mail Service Center
Raleigh, NC 27699-4274

May 31, 2012

RE: Censorship of Under Lock & Key No. 25 (March/April 2012)

Dear Ms. Bostic,

We would like to appeal the censorship of the above-listed publication. Please see attached notificatino.

We appreciate your assistance in this matter and look forward to your response.

Sincerely,

MIM Distributors


CC: Affected parties

Cynthia Bostic, Assistant Director
Support Services
4260 Mail Service Center
Raleigh, NC 27699-4260

12 November 2012

To Ms. Bostic,

We are in receipt of your two letters dated October 1, 2012 addressed to XYZ, responding to h inquiries made in June of this year. In one you state that conducting reviews of decisions to censor mail is time consuming and burdensome when the request is delayed. In the other letter you respond to her request for statistics on the review process stating that you do not provide such information.

How is it that so much time and effort goes into the review process and after over a year of requesting substantiation for your decisions you have not provided any? Certainly you can provide us with documentation of the reviews of our own mail.

As I have pointed out to you repeatedly, the notifications of censorship that we receive from your staff is hit or miss in providing any justification for the decision to censor. Sometimes they list a page number, but no further information. Sometimes we don't even get that. And I have not seen one instance where your "review" of their decisions has provided any justification. Is there or is there not any evidence that an independent review process exists within the NC Department of Public Safety? If there is, can you please provide documentation of such for the incidents of censorship involving mail from MIM Distributors for the past year?


Thank you,

Cynthia Bostic, Assistant Director
Support Services
4274 Mail Service Center
Raleigh, NC 27699-4274

21 August 2012

To Ms. Bostic,

This letter is in regards to mail sent to Mr. AAAA XXXX at Marion Correctional Institution, including a letter sent by myself on July 30, 2012. The mail was marked legal mail and certified. It included the letter I sent to you on the same date, which you should have received, as well as some documents of censorship and appeals of the censorship of our mail to Mr. XXXX. The United States Post Office lists this mail as being certified delivered to the addressee. Yet Mr. XXXX informs us that this mail was opened and read by state employees F. Hamilton and Ofc. Curtis counter to the procedures listed in D.0307(f)(1)(A). After reading this mail in front of him, staff took it with them for about 7 hours before returning it to Mr. XXXX. This is a blatant violation of the handling of certified legal mail, and I am requesting that your office investigate these staff members actions and ensure that they do not happen in the future.

It seems that most mail that MIM Distributors sends into Marion CI is being censored. Many items MIM has not received any notification for, nor have the recipients. This inappropriate handling of legal mail seems to be part of this systematic approach to any mail from MIM Distributors address, regardless of content. This reinforces suspicions related to previous censorship where you are unable to provide any substantiating evidence to back up claims that mail from MIM Distributors somehow poses a threat to safety of people living and working in North Carolina prisons. I am requesting that notifications be issued to the addressee and the sender when mail is censored, and that these notifications explain specifically what was objectionable and why.

As I mentioned in my last letter, I don't think we can consider it notification of censorship if you do not complete the forms that you send to MIM Distributors. Previous forms listed no reason for censorship or page numbers that violated rules. A recent notice given to Mr. XXXX does not list the publication name/volume/issue # as instructed, and the page number listed on page 2 of the form is "A." Judging by the date this form was addressing issue 27 of Under Lock & Key, but there is no page "A" in that publication. No notification of this incident has been received by MIM Distributors. So I am requesting that you send us a completed form when you do notify us of this censorship so that we can address your concerns.

In summary I am making the following requests:

1) ensure that your staff follow legal procedures in handling mail from MIM Distributors;
2) ensure that you and your staff fill out forms completely to provide proper notification of censorship;
3) specifically, provide a complete notice of censorship of mail received on 7/31/2012 at Marion CI.

Sincerely,

Cynthia Bostic, Assistant Director
Support Services
4274 Mail Service Center
Raleigh, NC 27699-4274

30 July 2012

To Ms. Bostic,

We received a letter to publisher from Fay Lassiter notifying MIM Distributors that Under Lock & Key No. 21 has been disapproved for prisoners in North Carolina. The form indicates the reason as "H", but there is no reason for disapproval on the subsequent page where Reason .0109 H is listed. Last week I just responded to another letter where that was also the case, which makes it hard for us to address your concerns when we don't know what is objectionable nor why. Thankfully, Mr. XXXXXX notified us that the reason for the censorship was given to him as an article on U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan. As he stated in his appeal, the same content was available to him via numerous other news sources, so it seems to be discriminatory that MIM Distributors is being censored for covering this story.

In light of these facts, I would like to request that an independent review of Under Lock & Key No. 21 be done, and that the results be sent to me at the address below. I am also requesting that future notices of disapproval include a justification for the disapproval so that we can both try to address the problem in the future as well as ensure that this censorship is not occurring arbitrarily or discriminatorily, as it might appear.


Sincerely,