Tracking Prison Censorship in the United States

Robert Schisler
Publication Review Officer
Hill Correctional Center
600 Linwood Rd
PO Box 1327
Galesburg, IL 61401

25 June 2007

Dear Mr. Schisler:


We have received another censorship notice from your office stating the same reasons as last time. This was for the The Party Bulletin Issue #3, sent to Mr. XXXXXX XXXXXX (#XXXXXX). We are enclosing the same arguments that we provided in our last letter in case you did not receive them. If we do not receive a letter from you reversing this decision then we will take that to mean that you will continue to openly violate our First Amendment rights to political beliefs and affiliations. We are in the process of further investigating the mailroom policies and legalities of such at your institution. We will be contacting you regarding those findings if we do not hear from you first.

The reasons given for this censorship include:

1) Depict, describe, or encourage activities that may lead to the use of physical violence or group disruption or it facilitates organizational activity without approval of the Chief Administrative Officer.

2) Advocate or encourage violence, hatred, or group disruption or it poses an intolerable risk of violence or disruption.

3) Encourage or instruct in the commission of criminal activity.

4) Be otherwise detrimental to security, good order, rehabilitation, or discipline or it might facilitate criminal activity or be detrimental to mental health.

5) Pamphlet advocates revolution.

Let me take this opportunity to dispute these 5 claims. The first part of point 1 is unfounded, in that the Party Bulletin never advocates violence or group disruption at Hill Correctional Center or any other prison. On the contrary, we explicitly work to discourage the tendencies to react violently to the prison environment among our prisoner readership. As far as facilitating unapproved organizational activity, we have made no efforts to help prisoners anywhere in Illinois form organizations. If we were to do so in the future, we would certainly advise such organizations to follow the relevant rules and regulations of the institutions in doing so.

Point 2 is completely unfounded. Nowhere does the Party Bulletin encourage violence. Our Party stands for an end to violence and oppression.

Point 3 is completely unfounded. Nowhere does the Party Bulletin instruct anyone to commit criminal activity. On page 13 of Issue 2 the Party Bulletin expressly criticizes New Afrikans for engaging in criminal activity. Our work is focused on getting people out of prison and keeping them out by putting their energy into building positive institutions within the community rather than engaging in activities that are destructive to the community.

Point 4 seems to be a catch all that is just reinforcing ideas I have addressed above. The Party Bulletin discourages criminal behavior, explicitly discourages prisoners from breaking the rules in prison and our Party spends a large amount of our resources helping to promote rehabilitation of current and former prisoners. The results of these efforts can be witnessed in prisoners that are affiliated with us who are consistently disciplined young men who avoid trouble with staff and prisoners and promote these ideals among fellow prisoners.

The Comments section seems to expose the real reasoning behind the decision to reject our publication, that it ?advocates revolution.? Fortunately for us, the First Amendment protects our human rights to believe in any political ideology that we choose and to advocate those beliefs. This includes our rights to affiliate with other people and organizations that share these ideas. In Procunier v. Martinez, the Supreme Court upheld the right of prisoners to receive mail from outside organizations regardless of the opinions of prison staff of those organizations or their ideas.

Upon further review you will find that we do not promote violence or criminal behavior in any of our publications. Therefore it is illegal to censor our communications with Mr. XXXXXX or any of our efforts to promote our beliefs among the prisoners at your institution.

In light of the above, we respectfully request that the Party Bulletin be released to Mr. XXXXXX and that the censorship of our materials at Hill CC ceases.

Thank you for your consideration in this matter,

New Afrikan Maoist Party

Functional Unit Manager
Oregon State Penitentiary
2605 State Street
Salem, OR 97310-0505


13 June 2007

Dear Sir/Madam,

This letter is in response to a Mail Violation Notice we received dated 05/24/07 (see enclosed) for a letter sent to Mr. XXX XXXXXX (XXXXXX). The written reason on the violation reads, ?recruiting inmates to create a threat to the security of facility.? I am writing to challenge this statement, since nowhere in the letter does MIM advocate any activity that would threaten security. We encourage prisoners to write articles, do translation work, join study groups, spread our literature around and we explicitly discourage prisoners from engaging in any activities that would break the rules at their facility.

Clearly the letter in question does not recruit for any ?security threatening? activities. On the contrary, those who are familiar with our work can attest to the fact that those who work with MIM seriously tend to be less likely to cause disruptions in prison. As we have been over repeatedly with staff at OSP, materials cannot be censored because staff disagrees with the political content. It is our hope that upon your review you will reverse this decision and further ensure that such incidents are avoided in the future by clarifying federal laws and facility rules around censorship.


Sincerely,
MIM Distributors

No reasoning was provided, but the prisoner reported receiving the newspaper with one page cut out following the media review.

Randy Greer
Mail Administrator, OR DOC
2575 Center Street NE
Salem, OR 97310

18 February 2007

Dear Mr. Greer,

This letter is in response to the censorship of two magazines (What is MIM? and MIM Theory No. 4) sent to Mr. XXXXXX XXXXXX XXXXXX at SRCI in January 2007. The magazines were sent by MIM Distributors, who are also the publishers of the magazines. The reported reason for this censorship was ?foreign substance on magazine? (see enclosed Mail Violation Notice). This is apparently a reference to a small brown dot on the center of the front cover of the MIM Theory No. 4 magazine (see enclosed photocopy).

Mr. Greer, you may be aware of a similar struggle we had at TRCI last year regarding a copy of MIM Theory that was deemed ?used? and rejected. While we were not able to establish a clear standard for how ?new? vs. ?used? materials are judged, MIM Distributors has responded by ceasing its previous practice of sending damaged materials to prisoners in Oregon that would not be useable on newstands or in bookstores. Despite this, we have encountered this problem again with this recent incident. It is also unclear why the second magazine was censored.

I understand that we may not seek administrative review for these incidents. But it does seem clear that there is a concerted effort to find excuses to prevent MIM?s publications from being received by prisoners in many of the ODOC?s facilities. So I am writing this letter to document this incident for yourself and the SRCI mailroom in hopes that you can work to ensure a more reasonable enforcement of the mail policy.

Thank you for your attention in this matter,