Tracking Prison Censorship in the United States

Assistant Section Chief
Support Services
4260 Mail Service Center
Raleigh, NC 27699-4260

15 September 2015

RE: censorship of Under Lock & Key No. 45

Dear Sir/Madam,

Once again I am requesting a review of the decision of the Publication Review Committee Chair, Fay Lassiter, to censor Under Lock & Key. The reason given in her 3 September 2015 letter was that issue 45 “encourages insurrection and disorder.” At no point does Under Lock & Key No. 45 encourage insurrection nor does it encourage disorder. Despite Ms. Lassiter's banning of every issue of Under Lock & Key for four years straight, every issue promotes peace, organization and legal campaigns as means of addressing the abuse of prisoners. This is the opposite of encouraging “insurrection and disorder.”

It is illegal for you to censor mail that does not pose an actual threat to safety. Please recognize this, and rescind the decision to censor Under Lock & Key No. 45.


Sincerely,

couldn't put up a proper argument because I wasn't able to read or even scan through the material before I appealed.

Assistant Section Chief
Support Services
4260 Mail Service Center
Raleigh, NC 27699-4260

30 June 2015

RE: censorship of Under Lock & Key No. 43 & 44

Dear Ms. Bostic,

This letter is to request:
1) That you honor my request for a review of the censorship of Under Lock & Key No. 43, which I wrote you about thirty (30) days ago.
2) That you review the most recent decision to censor Under Lock & Key No. 44, per my letter below.

On 27 June 2015, a letter arrived for MIM Distributors, from the Publication Review Committee Chair Fay Lassiter notifying them of the disapproval of issue 44 (May/June 2015) of the newsletter Under Lock & Key. The letter gives the reason of “code I”, citing page 8 for the reason of “depicts correctional staff in a negative manner.” The article in question reports on physical abuse prisoners in Ohio faced at the hands of correctional officers.

As I'm sure you are aware, the state is prohibited from censoring the media for the reason that said media is critical of the state's actions or policies. That is the primary purpose of the First Amendment to the Constitution and the institution of a free press. Therefore, it would be a violation of Federal law for your department to follow through with this censorship.

Assistant Section Chief
Support Services
4260 Mail Service Center
Raleigh, NC 27699-4260

30 June 2015

RE: censorship of Under Lock & Key No. 43 & 44

Dear Ms. Bostic,

This letter is to request:
1) That you honor my request for a review of the censorship of Under Lock & Key No. 43, which I wrote you about thirty (30) days ago.
2) That you review the most recent decision to censor Under Lock & Key No. 44, per my letter below.

On 27 June 2015, a letter arrived for MIM Distributors, from the Publication Review Committee Chair Fay Lassiter notifying them of the disapproval of issue 44 (May/June 2015) of the newsletter Under Lock & Key. The letter gives the reason of “code I”, citing page 8 for the reason of “depicts correctional staff in a negative manner.” The article in question reports on physical abuse prisoners in Ohio faced at the hands of correctional officers.

As I'm sure you are aware, the state is prohibited from censoring the media for the reason that said media is critical of the state's actions or policies. That is the primary purpose of the First Amendment to the Constitution and the institution of a free press. Therefore, it would be a violation of Federal law for your department to follow through with this censorship.



Sincerely,

Assistant Section Chief
Support Services
4260 Mail Service Center
Raleigh, NC 27699-4260

31 May 2015

RE: censorship of Under Lock & Key No. 43

Dear Ms. Bostic,

This letter is in response to a letter dated 5/19/15, postmarked 5/28/2015, from the Publication Review Committee Chair Fay Lassiter regarding the disapproval of issue 43 (March/April 2015) of the newsletter Under Lock & Key. I am writing to obtain an independent review of this decision.

The letter to publisher cites page 9 of the newsletter as the source of the problem, with the reason for censorship being “encourages violence and insurrection.” Ironically, the article on page 9 is about prisoners in Georgia who were peacefully refusing food in protest of violations of their First, Eighth and Fourteenth Amendment rights. Such peaceful actions are organized in a conscious effort to avoid any kind of violence or insurrection. It is troublesome that someone in your department felt that it was justified to violate the First Amendment rights of MIM Distributors in order to suppress information about people organizing peacefully against the violation of Constitutional rights. As a government official, the person making this decision has sworn to uphold the very Constitution that these people in Georgia are working to have upheld themselves.

In light of this obvious misuse of the words “violence” and “insurrection” I hope that you will overturn this decision to censor Under Lock & Key No. 43 in North Carolina prisons. I look forward to your response.

Sincerely,

Assistant Section Chief
Support Services
4260 Mail Service Center
Raleigh, NC 27699-4260

4 November 2014

RE: continued censorship of approved literature

Dear Ms. Bostic,

After writing you in mid-March and mid-May about the censorship of Under Lock & Key 36, you notified MIM Distributors in a June 4 letter that Under Lock & Key 36 will be allowed in North Carolina prisons. When my colleague requested that all copies of this issue of the newsletter be delivered to the prisoners they were mailed to, you informed her that MIM Distributors must resend the newsletters at their own cost. Since then, numerous copies have been resent, and we have confirmed that at least 2 have been censored (see enclosed delivery confirmation).

I am cc'ing the wardens of Scotland Correctional Facility and New Hanover Correctional Center to notify them that their mailroom staff has not been following the decisions of your office. The two prisoners affected are:

WWW ZZZ #AAA
XXX YYY #BBB

We are requesting that your office deliver copies of Under Lock & Key 36 to the prisoners above in order to ensure delivery. We have found in the past that administrative intervention can help remedy these problems at the local level and hope you will assist us in this matter.

Sincerely,

Katy Poole, Acting Correctional Administrator
Scotland Correctional Institution
PO Box 1808
Laurinburg, NC 28353-1808

2 December 2014

RE: censorship of approved literature (follow up)

Dear Ms. Poole,

I received your letter from 18 November responding to my inquiry about the censorship of literature approved by the North Carolina Department of Public Safety. While I appreciate the updated address for the person mentioned in that letter, you did not address my concern about the disappearance of this approved literature in your mailroom. Below is a list of other prisoners who have not received the same approved item, Under Lock & Key Issue 36:

[omitted]

As you can see from the enclosed U.S. Postal Service certified mail receipts, all of these were mailed after your department had approved Under Lock & Key Issue 36. To ensure that your staff was aware of this decision, the newsletters were mailed with copies of the letter from Assistant Section Chief, Cynthia Bostic approving it for receipt by North Carolina prisoners. Yet no one seems to have received it and no one has been notified of any censorship. How is it that this mail was not delivered?

I am requesting that you remedy this situation and ensure that all of the above people receive their copies of Under Lock & Key 36.

Sincerely,

Assistant Section Chief
Support Services
4260 Mail Service Center
Raleigh, NC 27699-4260

2 December 2014

RE: continued censorship of approved literature (follow up)

Dear Ms. Bostic,

I received your letter from 13 November upholding the censorship of Under Lock & Key Issue 39. While I find it regrettable that you objected to the commemoration of those killed and abused by the state of New York in Attica in 1971, I do appreciate the explanation this time and will pass it along to the editor.

I have not received a response from you to my more recent letter regarding the failure of many facilities to deliver an approved issue of ULK, Issue 36. This letter is to follow up on that, as I did receive a response from Katy Poole at Scotland CI, who informed me that Mr. XXX YYY has since left Scotland. She did not address the missing mail. So I am writing again to expand the list of prisoners whose mail has gone missing without explanation from your department.

On July 22, following the notification that ULK 36 was approved by your office, and following your assertion to Ms. Clarke that MIM Distributors must mail new copies of the newsletter to prisoners on their mailing list, new copies of ULK 36 were sent along with the letter of approval from your office to the following prisoners: [omitted]

As you can see, while most of the missing mail was at Scotland CI, this pattern seems to have occurred at a number of facilities. And as noted, the mailroom staff could not plead ignorance to your decision since your letter was mailed along with the newsletters via U.S. Certified Mail. The U.S. Postal Service has confirmed that these newsletters were received at each facility on 25 July. I am reiterating my request for your assistance in assuring that these prisoners receive their newsletters, which have been mailed to them twice now by MIM Distributors. It is evident that intervention is required to enforce the rules at these facilities.

Sincerely,

Assistant Section Chief
Support Services
4260 Mail Service Center
Raleigh, NC 27699-4260

25 December 2014

RE: continued censorship of approved literature (follow up 2)

Dear Ms. Bostic,

I just received your letter dated 5 December, postmarked 15 December addressing the continued censorship of Under Lock & Key 36 at various North Carolina prisons, even after it was approved by your office. To answer your letter, no, you have not addressed my request, which was for you to ensure delivery of said newsletter to the numerous people who have been denied it by your department. I even suggested a means by which to carry this out. In other states when mailroom staff continue to throw out mail we have succeeded in getting mail delivered by having it handled by administrative personnel such as yourself. Instead, you continue to assert that the mail was not refused.

In my previous letter (2 December 2014) I included documentation from the United States Postal Service showing that the newsletters, with copies of your approval letter, addressed to at least 13 people were delivered to 6 different facilities. Am I to believe that the USPS is lying and that NCDPS staff, who have repeatedly not delivered mail from MIM Distributors are telling the truth when you tell me, ?They report not refusing delivery of the publication to the two inmates you mentioned in your correspondence nor any other inmates.?? Is there no rule of law in North Carolina that you will continue to assert that you have followed the rules in this matter when the evidence clearly indicates the contrary?

MIM Distributors has attempted to mail this newsletter two times to about a dozen people being held prisoner by your department. The second time they were mailed along with your letter stating that the mail was approved to be received, so the mailroom could not claim ignorance of that decision. This is my sixth letter to you, not including letters to wardens of the offending facilities, about this one newsletter. The original newsletter was first mailed out in January 2014. Personally, I have been engaged with the literature review process in North Carolina for years and I have yet to see any evidence of any real process. I hope you can prove me wrong by following through on your word in this instance.

To reiterate, my request is that Under Lock & Key 36 be delivered by your department to the 13 people listed in my previous letter as you have indicated multiple times you would do. Once this is done, my request will be addressed.

Sincerely,

13 October 2014

RE: censorship of Under Lock & Key No. 39 (July/August 2014)

Dear Assistant Director,

This letter is in response to a 3 October 2014 letter from Fay Lassiter, Chair, Publication Review Committee regarding the publication titled Under Lock & Key No. 39 (July/August 2014). We received this letter on 8 October 2014.

The letter states that the publication was disapproved for delivery to prisoners in North Carolina because it allegedly violates North Carolina Division of Prisons policy D.0100. The only reason indicated on page 1 of the form was '?D? Code Violation.' As we have repeatedly pointed out, this vague reasoning makes it hard for MIM Distributors to address your department's concerns.

Additionally, in your Policy & Procedures D.0100 Publications Received/Posessed by Inmates, at .0103 (b), it states ?Descriptions and justifications should be specific enough to enable the Publication Review Committee (if there is an appeal) to turn to each listed page and immediately identify which words or images were disapproved and why.? I know this Procedure relates to the notes the Warden makes when referring the publication to the Publication Review Committee. Yet, page 2 and 3 of the Letter to Publisher form, where the page numbers and comments indicating what is objectionable, are consistently left blank. We are requesting that in the future that the Chairperson complete the standard paperwork according to your department's policies to facilitate our communications.

The repeated censorship of whole publications without the information we are requesting does not sufficiently articulate the reasoning for banning publications in order to satisfy the threshold of adequate motivation established by the U.S. Supreme Court. Federal Courts have stated in several occasions that "Prison authorities cannot rely on general or conclusory assertions to support their policies." Walker v. Sumner (9th Cir. 1990) 917 F.2d 382, 385 and that "Unsupported security claims couldn't justify infringement on First Amendment rights." Crofton v. Roe (9th Cir. 1999) 170 F.3d 957

At this time we can only appeal based on our knowledge of the whole content of that publication, that it does not advocate ?violence, disorder, insurrection or terrorist/gang activities.?
We did receive your letter from 8 September 2014 upholding the censorship of issue #38 of Under Lock & Key. In that letter you specified the content that you used to justify that censorship as we are requesting here, however this was received over three months after we first received notice from a prisoner that your department was holding that publication and after you had closed any opportunities to redress the censorship of MIM Distributors mail.

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

Sincerely,

Assistant Section Chief
Support Services
4260 Mail Service Center
Raleigh, NC 27699-4260

4 November 2014

RE: continued censorship of approved literature

Dear Ms. Bostic,

After writing you in mid-March and mid-May about the censorship of Under Lock & Key 36, you notified MIM Distributors in a June 4 letter that Under Lock & Key 36 will be allowed in North Carolina prisons. When my colleague requested that all copies of this issue of the newsletter be delivered to the prisoners they were mailed to, you informed her that MIM Distributors must resend the newsletters at their own cost. Since then, numerous copies have been resent, and we have confirmed that at least 2 have been censored (see enclosed delivery confirmation).

I am cc'ing the wardens of Scotland Correctional Facility and New Hanover Correctional Center to notify them that their mailroom staff has not been following the decisions of your office. The two prisoners affected are:

WWW ZZZ #AAA
XXX YYY #BBB

We are requesting that your office deliver copies of Under Lock & Key 36 to the prisoners above in order to ensure delivery. We have found in the past that administrative intervention can help remedy these problems at the local level and hope you will assist us in this matter.

Sincerely,

Assistant Section Chief
Support Services
4260 Mail Service Center
Raleigh, NC 27699-4260

4 November 2014

RE: continued censorship of approved literature

Dear Ms. Bostic,

After writing you in mid-March and mid-May about the censorship of Under Lock & Key 36, you notified MIM Distributors in a June 4 letter that Under Lock & Key 36 will be allowed in North Carolina prisons. When my colleague requested that all copies of this issue of the newsletter be delivered to the prisoners they were mailed to, you informed her that MIM Distributors must resend the newsletters at their own cost. Since then, numerous copies have been resent, and we have confirmed that at least 2 have been censored (see enclosed delivery confirmation).

I am cc'ing the wardens of Scotland Correctional Facility and New Hanover Correctional Center to notify them that their mailroom staff has not been following the decisions of your office. The two prisoners affected are:

WWW ZZZ #AAA
XXX YYY #BBB

We are requesting that your office deliver copies of Under Lock & Key 36 to the prisoners above in order to ensure delivery. We have found in the past that administrative intervention can help remedy these problems at the local level and hope you will assist us in this matter.

Sincerely,