Tracking Prison Censorship in the United States

Please be advised that the following publication has been denied to all inmates housed in the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections:

Under Lock & Key, #50, May/June 2016

The publication was denied for the following reasons:

Information on pages 17-18 incites inmates to demonstrate, which could cause a threat to inmates, staff or facility security.

If you would like to appeal this decision, you have 15 working days to set forth the reasons why the decision to deny the publicaiton was erroneous. Responses must be sent to:

Office of Policy, Grants and Legislative Affairs
PA Department of Corrections
1920 Technology Parkway
Mechanicsburg, PA 17050
ra-crdocpolicy@pa.gov

To review PADOC publication policies, please see www.cor.pa.gov

Superintendent John Kerestes
SCI Mahanoy
301 Morea Road
Frackville, PA 17932

6 October 2011

Dear Superintendent Kerestes,

This letter is regarding many issues of the newsletter Under Lock & Key that were denied to a prisoner held at SCI Mahanoy, Mr. XXX. We were recently informed by Mr. XXX that he neither received the issues, nor received notification that they were being denied. It is United States law that the sender and prisoner must be notified if an item of mail is being censored by prison administrators or staff (Procunier v. Martinez, 416 U.S.396. 94 S.Ct 1800, and Montcalm Publ'g Corp. v. Beck, 80 F.3d 105, 106 (4th Cir.), cert. denied, 519 U.S. 928 (1996)). In spite of this, MIM Distributors was also no notified of this censorship.

Here is a list of the issues of Under Lock & Key which were denied to Mr. XXX, without notification as described above:

Issue 9 (July 2009)
Issue 10 (September 2009)
Issue 11 (November 2009)
Issue 12 (January 2010)
Issue 13 (March 2010)
Issue 14 (May 2010
Issue 15 (July 2010)
Issue 16 (September 2010
Issue 17 (November 2010)
Issue 18 (January 2011)
Issue 19 (March 2011)
Issue 20 (May 2011)

We recently sent Mr. XXX issues 21 (July 2011) and 22 (September 2011) and have not received notification of denial, or confirmation that Mr. XXX has received them.

Please look into this issue, as this censorship is obviously illegal. We appreciate your assistance in this matter and look forward to your response.

Sincerely,

MIM Distributors

CC: Affected parties

I appealed the rejection of ULK 14 and DOC HQ ruled in my favor, and remanded saying that SCI-Mahanoy staff denied #14 without due cause. Warden John Kerestes said it was originally denied for page 5.