This summer, the ACLU of Kansas & Western Missouri is collecting and reviewing the inmate mail policies in place in Kansas’ jails. In May, Summer Law Clerk Janet Kearney sent open records requests to the jails in Kansas’s twenty largest counties asking for copies of the jails’ mail policies, inmate handbooks, and grievance procedures. We have now received responses from most of the jails.
On June 5, 2013, the ACLU received the requested policies from the Riley County Jail in Manhattan, Kansas. The jail’s Inmate Handbook provides, in pertinent part, that “[n]ewspapers and magazines are also not allowed in the facility and will be placed in your property.”
On June 10, 2013, the ACLU received the requested policies from the Labette County Jail in Oswego, Kansas. The Labette County Jail’s policy on “Inmate Correspondence” provides, in pertinent part, that “[n]ewspapers and or magazines are also not allowed. No newspaper and/or magazine clippings, or computer generated graphics or e-mails will be allowed.”
Banning newspapers, magazines, and other periodicals from the jail violates the First Amendment to the United States Constitution.
Because that policy is a blatant violation of the First Amendment right of prisoners to receive information, Legal Director Doug Bonney immediately sent letters to Riley County Police Department Director Brad Schoen and Labette County Counselor Fred W. Johnson demanding that the jails drop the unconstitutional ban on newspapers, magazines, and other periodicals by Friday, June 14, 2013, or risk being sued by the ACLU.
On June 13, 2013, the Assistant Director of the Riley County Police Department, which operates the jail, advised the ACLU that the Department has removed the language from its Inmate Handbook “that effectively banned the possession of newspapers and magazines by inmates of the Riley County Jail.” .
Riley County Jail Newspaper Ban - Demand Letter
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