Tracking Prison Censorship in the United States

Benjamin A. Wright, Publication Review Committee
Virginia Department of Corrections
PO Box 26963
Richmond, VA 23261-6963

21 April 2008

Mr. Wright,

I am responding to your letter dated March 31, 2008 regarding the decision to ban Issue #1 of the newsletter Under Lock & Key. As the letter was postmarked April 9, 2008 I believe I am writing within the 15 day period required to request a review of this decision.

The basis for my request for a review is the U.S. Supreme Court decision of THORNBURGH v. ABBOTT, 490 U.S. 401 (1989). The reason that you cite from Operating Procedure #803.2 is taken directly from THORNBURGH, which reads:

Federal Bureau of Prisons regulations generally permit prisoners to receive publications from the "outside," but authorize wardens, pursuant to specified criteria, to reject an incoming publication if it is found "to be detrimental to the security, good order, or discipline of the institution or if it might facilitate criminal activity."

You cite the latter part of this sentence but ignore what it refers to as ?specified criteria,? which the case cites as being established in TURNER v. SAFLEY, 482 U.S. 78, 89 (1987). TURNER reiterates the need to establish a ?valid, rational connection between the prison regulation and the legitimate government interest? and that ?the governmental objective must be a legitimate and neutral one.? Citing the pages of the newsletter that provide a well-documented factual account of abuses that took place at Red Onion State Prison indicates a clear bias in determining the linkage of the material to a presumed threat to security. In fact, this is a textbook example of what the First Amendment exists for, to prevent the government from restricting the press to content that serves the interest of the government itself.

We hope that upon review you can act to rectify this blatant violation of the U.S. Constitution by the VADOC Publication Review Committee.

Sincerely,

pages 10 & 11 were the Under Lock & Key sections of MIM Notes containing letters from prisoners about what's going on behind bars.

On May 5th i was notified of the reversal, yet i didn't receive the "klean" issue of MT14 until May 8th, after i wrote to the Deputy Warden of Programs that the MT14 was not sent with the reversal notice per procedure.

Central Office Media Review Committee
New York State Department of Correctional Services
Bldg. 2, Rm 112
State Office Campus
1220 Washington Ave.
Albany, NY 12226

7 May 2008

Dear Sir/Madam,

In March, Mr. XXXXXX E.Nkosithani XXXXXX (XXXXXX) notified MIM Distributors that a magazine (MIM Theory 14: United Front) mailed to him had been censored for the reason ?darkened ink splotches from bottom to top on pp. 124&125 and 108&109.? The magazine was not returned, and no notification was sent by the Department of Corrections to MIM Distributors. I have not been able to find anything in Directive 4572 that states that publications can be censored for printing errors within the publication.

On April 6, MIM Distributors sent another copy of the magazine to Mr. Nkosithani that did not appear to have any printing errors in it. This time Mr. Nkosithani notified MIM Distributors that the same magazine had been censored for ?16 pages? that were marked as ?incites violence, et cetera, in violation of Dir. 4572?? He has already submitted an appeal addressing the alleged violations point-by-point. We do not have a copy of the violations, as once again MIM Distributors was not notified of the censorship by the department. So we will stand by Mr. Nkosithani?s appeal. It does seem that the Media Review Committee is grasping at straws for reasons to censor MIM Theory 14 since printing errors do not seem to pose a threat of any kind, and MIM?s literature has never incited violence as claimed in the most recent instance.

In addition to requesting an appeal to the decision to censor MIM Theory 14, I wish to request a clarification from the department of Title 9 7004.3(b)(1)(i)(ii). Is it not department policy that publishers be notified when and why their publications have been censored? Our recent experience with Upstate Correctional Facility, Bare Hill, Clinton and others show a regular practice of publications not being delivered to prisoners, not being returned to the publisher and no notification being sent to the publisher. If you could clarify the policy so that we know whether to expect this in the future, I would appreciate it.

Thank you for your time,

Oh, MIM! I had my adminstrative review on the mail which was considered 'STG A Call To Action.' The violation was overturned. Apparently the 'Call to Action' was the suggestion that study group participants 'please step up' in their response/participation. The mailroom clerk did not correlate the request with the study group, I guess, even though the paper clearly says 'study group course.' Fortunately, the reviewers were more reasonable and I commend them for that. The Administrative Mail reviews at SRCI are now handled by Ms. Blackletter. I'm also enclosing my appeal of Administrative Review regarding MN #338, which was not overturned. On Under Lock & Key a prisoner calls for comrades to not participate in the snitch program and this is why the paper was violated

Aiight, I'm out.

Media Review Committee
Southport Correctional Facility
PO Box 2000
Pine City, NY 14871-2000

2 March 2008

Dear Sir/Madam,

This is in a response to a notification that we received from Mr. XXXXXX XXXXXX (XXXXXX) that a copy of MIM?s newsletter, Under Lock & Key Issue 1, was censored by Southport Correctional Facility mailroom staff because it ?incites disobedience.? We were not notified by staff of this censorship, so we can only respond to the information provided us by Mr. XXXXXX.

I am requesting a review of this decision, which reportedly applied to all pages (1-12) of the newsletter. The basis of my appeal is that it is MIM?s explicit policy to discourage prisoners from breaking any rules or laws. Not only do we promote the use of legal means of dealing with injustices, we have had a significant effect in reducing retaliatory actions among prisoners who are a part of our programs over the last couple decades.

While I could not find any incites to disobedience in the publication in question, I did find the following statement on page 2:
?Note to prisoners and to mailroom staff -- MIM and its publications explicitly oppose the use of armed struggle at this time in the imperialist countries (including the united states). Our current battles in the united states are legal ones. We encourage prisoners to join these battles while explicitly discouraging them from engaging in any violence or illegal acts.?

Then on page 11 a contributor writes: ?I do agree that those types of behaviors [cursing and spitting] are not only silly but stupid.? The writer goes on to encourage prisoners to use ?the pen & paper? as the only form of dealing with abuses that they face.

In light of these excerpts and a review of the whole content of ULK Issue 1, I hope you will find that the claims made to justify censoring MIM were erroneous. If you disagree, please provide us with an explanation of exactly what content of this publication was deemed unacceptable so that we can work to resolve this matter.

Thank you for your time,

Inspector General
New York State Department of Correctional Services
Bldg. 2, Rm 112
State Office Campus
1220 Washington Ave.
Albany, NY 12226

16 March 2008

Dear Sir/Madam,

We recently received a letter from Mr. XXXXXX XXXXXX (XXXXXX), requesting that we contact you regarding a recent incident of censorship of one of our publications at Southport Correctional Facility. I have enclosed the letter that we originally sent to the Media Review Committee at Southport. Since then, Mr. XXXXXX has written to request an investigation into the fact that Southport?s Media Review Committee Chairperson, P. Sweeney, has not been notifying publishers that their mail is being censored. This letter is to affirm that we never received notice of the February 15, 2008 censorship decision made regarding the November 2007 issue of our publication Under Lock & Key.

As described in the enclosed letter, we are requesting that our communications and affiliations with prisoners in the NYS DOCS be allowed per the rights granted us in the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. In addition, we request that if there are any further concerns that we are notified of them so that we can work to remedy them immediately, as described in New York Code Title 7 section 720.4(G)(1)(2).

Thank you for your time,

The February 15th, 2008 decision of the Southport Facility Media Review Committee, to reject and censor, Under Lock & Key, November 2007 No. 1, was reversed by the Central Office Media Review Committee on April 2nd, 2008, which was a huge victory in our fight against censorship.

I would like to inform you that since this victory, I have been receiving material from MIM Distributors with no harassment, which is definitely great news!

a New York Prisoner

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

22 February 2008


Dear Mr. Greer,

I?m writing you directly regarding some recent returned mail, as it seems that things have escalated to the point of unsubstantiated censorship again at SRCI. In addition, it appears that the staff there has resorted to harassment of inmates for their (assumed) political beliefs. I would like to request an administrative review on both of these decisions, and an investigation into the harassment.

I?ve enclosed the two recent Mail Violation Notices, both claiming MIM Distributors is an STG. The first states that MIM Distributors is an ?Unauthorized Publisher.? Is there something we can do to notify staff of MIM?s authorized publisher status on a regular basis, like posting a list in the mailroom or something? It seems that I have had to write to you regarding this claim every six months or so.

The second notice states ?STG A Call to Action.? Is staff member Moorebe claiming that MIM is a security threat group? As I?ve previously explained, MIM literature expressly discourages our readers from any activity that is illegal, violent or counterproductive in any other way. We do call people to take political action, as any political organization does. Is that now a violation of the department?s policies?

I look forward to your response to this matter, and thank you for taking your time to investigate these matters for us.


Sincerely,