Tracking Prison Censorship in the United States

October 5, 2024

ATTN: Robert Adams Jr., Warden
2520 Union Springs Road
P.O. Box 549
Whiteville, Tennessee 38075

Missing Mail

To Mr. Adams:

We are MIM(Prisons), a publisher and distributor of literary materials for prisoners in the United States. We recently sent a number of publications to one XXXXXX Joe XXXXXX #XXXXXX residing at your facility which Mr. XXXXXX reported to us that he did not receive. The items in question are:

--Under Lock & Key Issue 85
--Under Lock & Key Issue 86

Seeing as we sent these items to your facility to be delivered to Mr. XXXXXX, the only possible explanation as to why they were not delivered is because the staff in the mail room at your facility decided to withhold them for some reason. However, neither ourselves nor Mr. XXXXXX received any notice about these materials being rejected. This is in direct conflict with TDOC policy 507.02 which states that “if the Warden/Superintendent determines that mail sent to an inmate could reasonably present a threat to the security, order, or programs of the institution, he/she notifies both the inmate recipient and sender of his/her intent to reject the mail
and return it to the sender.” As such, we find it completely unacceptable for our mail to not be delivered to a prisoner at your facility without any notice or communication from staff at your facility.

Furthermore, we would like to point out that this policy of the TDOC is backed up by decades of case law regarding this issue which established that such a lack of notice of censorship is a violation of our due process rights as publishers and distributors of literary materials. Please refer to Montcalm Publishing Corporation v. Beck, 80 F.3d 105 (4th Cir. 1996). Furthermore, we would remind you that as the publisher, we have a First Amendment right to correspond with prisoners, which is violated when our mail is unjustly censored. See Thornburgh v. Abbott, 490 U.S. 401, 407-08 (1989). The institutional safeguards put in place by TDOC policy 507.02 are intended to uphold these findings of the courts and prevent such flippant abuses of power (or worse, gross neglect of duties) as seen here.

We request the decision to withhold the listed materials be vacated and the publications be forwarded to Mr. XXXXXX. Failing to do this, we request that you send us adequate notice of the censorship as you are required to provide by law. Failure to provide appropriate notice and adherence to your policies may result in legal action.

Please govern yourself accordingly.


Sincerely,

October 5, 2024

ATTN: Robert Adams Jr., Warden
2520 Union Springs Road
P.O. Box 549
Whiteville, Tennessee 38075

Missing Mail

To Mr. Adams:

We are MIM(Prisons), a publisher and distributor of literary materials for prisoners in the United States. We recently sent a number of publications to one XXXXXX Joe XXXXXX #XXXXXX residing at your facility which Mr. XXXXXX reported to us that he did not receive. The items in question are:

--Under Lock & Key Issue 85
--Under Lock & Key Issue 86

Seeing as we sent these items to your facility to be delivered to Mr. XXXXXX, the only possible explanation as to why they were not delivered is because the staff in the mail room at your facility decided to withhold them for some reason. However, neither ourselves nor Mr. XXXXXX received any notice about these materials being rejected. This is in direct conflict with TDOC policy 507.02 which states that “if the Warden/Superintendent determines that mail sent to an inmate could reasonably present a threat to the security, order, or programs of the institution, he/she notifies both the inmate recipient and sender of his/her intent to reject the mail
and return it to the sender.” As such, we find it completely unacceptable for our mail to not be delivered to a prisoner at your facility without any notice or communication from staff at your facility.

Furthermore, we would like to point out that this policy of the TDOC is backed up by decades of case law regarding this issue which established that such a lack of notice of censorship is a violation of our due process rights as publishers and distributors of literary materials. Please refer to Montcalm Publishing Corporation v. Beck, 80 F.3d 105 (4th Cir. 1996). Furthermore, we would remind you that as the publisher, we have a First Amendment right to correspond with prisoners, which is violated when our mail is unjustly censored. See Thornburgh v. Abbott, 490 U.S. 401, 407-08 (1989). The institutional safeguards put in place by TDOC policy 507.02 are intended to uphold these findings of the courts and prevent such flippant abuses of power (or worse, gross neglect of duties) as seen here.

We request the decision to withhold the listed materials be vacated and the publications be forwarded to Mr. XXXXXX. Failing to do this, we request that you send us adequate notice of the censorship as you are required to provide by law. Failure to provide appropriate notice and adherence to your policies may result in legal action.

Please govern yourself accordingly.


Sincerely,

October 5, 2024

L.R. Thomas, Assistant Commissioner of Prisons
Fourth Floor, Rachel Jackson Building
320 Sixth Avenue North
Nashville, Tennessee 37243-0465

Re: Rejected Mail

To Mr. Thomas:

We are MIM(Prisons), a publisher and distributor of literary materials for prisoners in the United States. We are in receipt of a memo informing us that a publication we sent to one XXXXXX XXXXXX #611076 at the Bledsoe County Correctional Complex was rejected. We received this memo on October 4, 2024. You will find a copy of this memo enclosed herein.

To begin, we would like to point out that nowhere in the memo does it mention what material is actually being rejected. This is obviously unacceptable, so we would advise the TDOC to avoid similar missteps in the future. Thankfully, we keep adequate records of what is sent to each of our readers, so we are aware the rejected mail is Under Lock & Key Issue 86 (hereafter “ULK”).

The listed reason for censorship is that the publication allegedly satisfies “contains literature that could advocate, facilitate, or otherwise present a risk of lawlessness, violence, or rebellion against government authority, prison staff, and/or other inmates.”

As the publishers of ULK, we know that no material fitting any of part of this description can be found anywhere in the publication. In order to fulfill our due diligence, we reviewed the issue of ULK in question and confirmed this. We would also like to highlight section VI.L.1 (g) of TDOC policy 507.02 which states: “Rejection notices regarding magazines or similar publications must contain information to identify the specific issues or items being rejected (example, picture on page 7 is pornographic; article on page 8 contains information on weapons manufacture, etc.).” We find that the enclosed memo contradicts this policy as it does not provide any details as to what specific portions of the publication supposedly “advocate […] lawlessness.”

Additionally, we include the following disclaimer on page 2 of every issue of ULK: “We encourage prisoners to join [our] battles while explicitly discouraging them from engaging in any violence or illegal acts.” Given this disclaimer, we fail to see how ULK is purportedly “facilitat[ing] […] rebellion against government authority” while simultaneously and explicitly disavowing such acts.

We request the decision to withhold the listed materials be vacated and the publications be forwarded to Mr. XXXXXX. Failing to do this, we request that you send an adequate notice of censorship which details the supposed violations as you are required to provide by TDOC policy. Failure to provide appropriate notice and adherence to your policies may result in legal action.

Please govern yourself accordingly.


Sincerely,

Officer checking: Asst. Chaplain - Mike Guess

It is my decision to reject this mail based on the following reason:
1. Be an attempt to incite violence based on race, religion, sex, creed or nationality
11. Other. No magazines or newspapers allowed

Officer checking: Asst. Chaplain - Mike Guess

It is my decision to reject this mail based on the following reason:
1. Be an attempt to incite violence based on race, religion, sex, creed or nationality
11. Other. No magazines or newspapers allowed

Officer checking: Asst. Chaplain - Mike Guess

It is my decision to reject this mail based on the following reason:
1. Be an attempt to incite violence based on race, religion, sex, creed or nationality
11. Other. No magazines or newspapers allowed

Officer checking: Asst. Chaplain - Mike Guess

It is my decision to reject this mail based on the following reason:
1. Be an attempt to incite violence based on race, religion, sex, creed or nationality
11. Other. No magazines or newspapers allowed