Tracking Prison Censorship in the United States

"...rejection of offender grievance operations manual [a TDCJ docmuent] received in contradiction with BP-03.91, Uniform Offender Correspondence Rules. ..."

#63 was denied to me which of course I filed the proper grievances that I needed to but I never heard nothing back and getting anything done like that is very hard on this unit I'm assigned to.

(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.

Remarks: Page 13 contain information that could cause a prison strike and prison disruption

Does offender wish to appeal the denial? yes

10/2/15 - (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.

Remarks: page 1 + 16 contains prison strikes

Does offender wish to appeal the denial? Non-appealable

DRC upheld the denial on 10/1/15

According to my paperwork, ULK 45 was denied due to articles written on pages 1 and 16 (one and sixteen) allegedly the article dealing with a strike.

I was NOT given an opportunity to appeal. My paperwork stated that the Director's Review Committee (DRC) upheld the denial on 10/1/15. I received (or allegedly received) my ULK 45 on October 2nd. I believe this date recorded as "received on" is a misrepresentation (or in other words, a creation of a fraudulent or misleading official government record!) of an official government record. Willing to bet that it was done to keep me out of the appeal process!

Director's Review Committee
Mark Stiles Unit
3060 FM 3514
Beaumont, TX 77705

January 12, 2015

RE: Censorship of Under Lock & Key to XXX

Dear DRC,
MIM Distributors received a letter dated November 24 from Mr. XXX notifying us that he did not receive one of the publications we mailed to him: Under Lock & Key 40 (September 2014). This publication was mailed to Mr XXXXXX on September 26.

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.

Per 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.

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 Mark Stiles Unit
- Appeal of this specific instance of censorship
- and that future incoming mail from MIM Distributors to prisoners held at Mark Stiles 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

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

5 May 2013

Dear Director's Review Committee,

I am in receipt of a notice that Under Lock & Key No. 31 (March/April 2013) has been denied delivery to prisoners in the Texas Department of Criminial Justice. The reason cited for this censorship is Board Policy-03.91 Uniform Offender Correspondence Rules "Reason C. Page 6 contains and advocates a hunger strike." I am writing to appeal that censorship, and to ask that all copies of this publication which have been mails to prisoners within the TDCJ system without further delay.

Reason C states "Publications contians 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."

It is true that page 6 of ULK 31 contains a report on a hunger strike. However, prisoners have a right to read the newspaper, which includes news reports within Under Lock & Key. With all the mainstream media outlets reporting on the hunger strike in the Guantanamo Bay prison lately, is your Department also censoring these newspapers for Reason C?

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

Sincerely,

MIM Distributors
PO Box 40799
San Francisco, CA 94140

CC: Affected parties