Tracking Prison Censorship in the United States

I am objecting to staff Kristie B. Stenback's decision to reject incoming publication material from Under Lock & Key (ULK). Her statements ULK has been on the Master List of Disapproved Publications (MLDP) for the past/previous 12 months and there are no appeal rights to this decision.

Dear Publication Review Committee,

The rejecting of the ULK newsletter is a form of retaliation and has been one form (my mail) staff has used to retaliate against me.
I can't file a grievance on this serious matter because staff here jester with me filing grievances, demolishing them and/or unjustly rejecting my inmate grievances when I have other complaints before this one.
Miss Kristie B. Stenback is giving misleading information which is also lying that ULK appears on the statewide MLDP and has been for the previous 12 months by the DOP, PRC. I object to this statement on two grounds. Number one, I have been feceiving materials from ULK up until April of 2010. Number two, my last copy of the MLDP is from 6/23/2010 - 6/25/2010 and ULK is not on the list.

Maoist is an internationalist newspaper that is helpful for inmates. They discourage any engaging in violence or illegal acts. Therefor, why is something so peaceful and informative for us prisoners being locked upon as something being negative? I'll appreciate it a lot if you all allow me to receive my newspaper.

Publication was sent to Columbus for review.

Robert M. Stevenson III, Warden
Broad River Correctional Institution
4460 Broad River Road
Columbia, SC 29210
803-896-2234

28 June 2010

Dear Warden Stevenson,

On 30 April 2010, a mail parcel from MIM Distributors was denied delivery to XXX, who is imprisoned at Broad River CI. There was a notice of rejection form returned with the parcel, which stated that "This correspondence contained publication Under Lock & Key not IHW SCDC PS 10.08/9 para 9.1 which is unauthorized per SCDC Policy PS-10.08, 'Inmate Correspondence Privileges.'"

We are writing this letter to ask you for a copy of the "Inmate Correspondence Privileges", so that we can avoid wasting your mailroom staff's time in the future. Unfortunately, we were unable to locate them on the internet. Please send them to the address above. We would appreciate your help in this matter.

Second, we would like to appeal this decision made by the mailroom staff at Broad River CI, because we do not believe that they gave a specific enough explanation for the censorship. In the parcel there were two issues of Under Lock & Key, number 9 (July 2009) and number 12 (Jan/Feb 2010). The notice of rejection did not cite which issue was alleged in violation of the SCDC policy, and did not cite what specifically was in violation.

As I am sure you are aware, incoming publications are generally protected from arbitrary censorship under the First Amendment, and this is upheld in several court cases. For this reason we would appreciate if a third party reviewed the censorship of this parcel to XXX, to check for arbitrariness.

We look forward to your response, and to receiving the "Inmate Correspondences Privileges" policies.

Sincerely,

MIM Distributors

CC: Affected parties