Prison newsletter judgment defines censorship guidelines

New rules defining publications that may be prohibited behind prison walls were released this week as part of a judgment in a lawsuit against the Nevada prison system.

The July lawsuit pitted the Prison Legal News - a 3,500 circulation monthly newsletter edited by an inmate in a Washington penitentiary - against the Nevada Department of Prisons.

Both sides claimed victory when a federal judge in Reno decided in August that prisoners should be guaranteed access if the publication and the prisoners meet criteria established by prison officials.

Now, rules that more narrowly define those criteria were entered as part of the judgment. Publications that contain the following information may be withheld from inmates:

- construction of weapons.

- helping escape.

- brewing of alcohol or manufacture of drugs.

- content written in code.

- encouraging violence or group disruption.

- encouraging criminal activity.

- sexually explicit material that poses a threat to security or discipline.

Additionally, if a warden rejects an issue of a publication, "he or she must advise the subscribing inmate promptly in writing of the reasons for the rejection and send a copy of such rejection memorandum to the publisher," the court said.

Also part of the judgment is a provision that The Prison Legal News can no longer be banned, and that $5,000 be paid to the Prison Legal News for damages. Prisoners who were denied access to the newsletter will be provided one year of back issues. The judgment was agreed to by publishers of the newsletter and prison officials.

"This is a message to the Department of Prisons and the (Nevada) Attorney General's Office to be more responsive and more responsible about how to deal with these sorts of issues," said Nevada American Civil Liberties Union director Gary Peck at the time of the original decision. "It's not enough to simply demagogue such issues by talking about frivolous prisoner lawsuits."

Joe Ward, the deputy attorney general who represented the prison system, said at the time that the provisions of the judgment were agreeable, and could have been agreed to outside of the courtroom. The judgment allowed the censoring of prisoner material to remain under the discretion of prison operators.

Glen Wharton, spokesman for the prison, said Tuesday the new rules reflect rules that were previously in place.

"The 1997 Legislature defined specific criteria about the types of things that would be allowed in the prisons," he said. "That type of stuff was already prohibited."