Authorities at the Lansing Correctional Facility, a state prison in Kansas, recently began barring Militant subscribers there from getting their paper. The Militant has launched a fight to overturn this violation of the constitutional right of workers behind bars to read the papers of their choice.
In mid-July the Kansas Department of Corrections adopted a new Internal Management Policy and Procedure that restricted inmates to getting books and publications from just three vendors — Books-A-Million, Books N Things Warehouse Inc., and Christian Bookstore a/k/a Christianbook.com.
Since then three Militant subscribers at the Lansing prison have been unable to get their papers, and others they subscribed to. They were issued a “Notice of Mail Censorship,” saying that the paper is not an “approved vendor.”
“Publishers such as the Militant have a First Amendment right to send publications to inmates, particularly to disseminate political views,” Militant attorney David Goldstein wrote state prison authorities Aug. 21, appealing this ban. “The Militant has been delivered to inmate subscribers within KDOC facilities since 2018. The Militant is also delivered to several hundred inmates at approximately 140 federal, state and local facilities throughout the United States.”
Goldstein received an email response Sept. 3 from Darcie Holthaus, corrections manager II at the Kansas Department of Corrections, saying, “Your publication has been approved.” She added, “The residents will need to initiate a new request to our business office for the publication, and they will be allowed delivery assuming no censor guidelines regarding safety/security are violated. A censor will be issued for each copy until the new request from the resident(s) reaches the business office.”
However, in September Lansing Correctional Facility authorities “continued to censor the Militant and refused to deliver it to the inmate subscribers,” Goldstein wrote back Oct. 9. This is despite the fact that inmate subscribers followed Holthaus’ instructions, informing prison authorities the Militant has now been listed as an approved vendor and requesting the Militant be delivered to them.
Prison authorities sent a form letter to them saying the Militant is “not an approved vendor,” “was not purchased through established procedures,” and “does not include an invoice, receipt, or packing slip verifying the purchase was made by the resident.”
“Is there something the Militant can do to address the apparent problem that the new procedures appear to exclude publications otherwise protected by the U.S. Constitution merely when they are provided free to inmates?” Goldstein wrote in his Oct. 9 appeal.
“The Militant hereby specifically requests that KDOC provide it and its subscribing inmates with a clear explanation as to what it, or its subscriber inmates, must do that it may continue to deliver the Militant to KDOC inmate subscribers, in accordance with the publisher’s and the inmates’ constitutional rights,” he said.
We will continue to keep Militant readers informed of this developing political rights fight, and what you can do to help. Stay tuned.