PRESS RELEASE---Prison Legal News – For
Immediate Release
October 11, 2011
Publisher Files Censorship Suit Against New York Dept. of Correctional Services
New York, NY – Prison Legal News (PLN), a non-profit monthly publication that
reports on criminal justice-related issues and a project of the Human Rights
Defense Center, today fileda federal lawsuit against New York Department of
Correctional Services officials, including NYDOCS Commissioner Brian Fischer.
The suit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New
York, alleges First Amendment violations due to unconstitutional censorship of
PLN’s monthly publication, books and correspondence at NYDOCS facilities
statewide.
Specifically, PLN claims that the NYDOCS has an “unconstitutional policy of
prohibiting inmates from receiving any and all books, magazines, letters and
postcards distributed by Plaintiff, including letters from Plaintiff’s
attorney...,” which “deprives Plaintiff, as well as its subscribers, of
important First Amendment rights and serves no neutral, legitimate penological
purpose.”
According to PLN’s complaint, NYDOCS maintains a list of “disapproved vendors”
that are not allowed to send publications to prisoners and PLN has been placed
on that list because it accepts payment for its monthly publication and books in
the form of postage stamps. As a result, state prison officials unilaterally
censor “PLN’s monthly publications, books, subscription renewal letters,
fundraising letters, informational brochures, routine subscription inquiry
postcards and even letters from PLN’s attorney.”
“The actions of the New York Department of Correctional Services are
unconstitutional, and blatantly so,” said PLN editor Paul Wright. “State prison
officials are using pretextual excuses to censor our publication and books,
which inform prisoners how to vindicate their few remaining rights. The
government should not be in the business of restricting what people can read
even if those people are incarcerated.”
The attorney representing PLN, Bob Keach, a civil rights lawyer from Amsterdam,
New York, further added that “DOCS is censoring all PLN publications, including
publications that PLN provides to prisoners for free, such as the Prisoner
Diabetes Handbook. The ban on PLN publications has nothing to do with accepting
stamps and everything to do with precluding prisoners from learning the valuable
information contained in PLN publications, including, not incidentally, how to
sue DOCS when their rights are violated.”
PLN is seeking a declaration that the NYDOCS’s policy of censoring reading
material sent to New York state prisoners is unconstitutional, as well as
injunctive relief, actual and punitive damages, attorney fees and costs.
PLN is represented by Amsterdam, NY attorney Elmer Robert Keach III and Human
Rights Defense Center chief counsel Lance Weber. The case is Prison Legal News
v. William Lee, et al., U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New
York, White Plains Division, Case No. 7:11-cv-07118.
Paul Wright, Editor
Prison Legal News
P.O. Box 2420
West Brattleboro, VT 05303
www.prisonlegalnews.org
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Lois Ahrens * The Real Cost of Prisons Project *
www.realcostofprisons.org *
www.realcostofprisons.org/blog/