BY KATIE MOORE

Two publications that distribute news to prisoners in Missouri and beyond say the state Department of Corrections is blocking access to information. Paul Wright, editor of Prison Legal News, and Erin Eife, a volunteer with Prison Health News, said both publications have faced challenges under a policy implemented by the Missouri Department of Corrections in September 2023.

The more restrictive policy prevents people from sending reading materials to prisoners. Instead, friends, family and others are required to add funds to a prisoner’s account for them to order books, magazines and other reading materials through the correction department’s approved vendor. The agency said they made the change in an effort to prevent drugs from getting into facilities. Wright said Prison Legal News, an organization covering legal developments impacting prisons and jails, gained subscribers in Missouri prisons soon after the publication was established in 1990. There weren’t any problems until late 2018 when the Department of Corrections began returning the publication’s mailings. That included monthly editions of Prison Legal News and Criminal Legal News.

They filed a lawsuit in August 2023 alleging First Amendment and due process violations. The case remains ongoing in federal court.

Wright said now the publication is also having problems getting its books to prisoners under the new policy, and they are planning to file a second lawsuit in the the next month. “Prisoners have a right to receive publications and information through the mail, and as publishers, we also have a right to send it to prisoners,” he said. He noted that the prison system already censors what books are available.

“The last thing you want is an informed and educated prison population,” he said. Karen Pojmann, a spokeswoman for the Missouri Department of Corrections, said a publication’s newsletter may have to be distributed electronically or mailed to a center that scans in letters and sends them electronically to prisoners’ tablets. She said that prisoners have free access to more than 220,000 books, magazines and other publications through the prison’s libraries. They can also purchase periodical subscriptions through an ordering process.

Antwann Johnson, a prisoner at Jefferson City Correctional Center, said he wants to further his knowledge on topics including religion and the law. But the DOC’s policy has made it difficult to access materials. “Now I can’t get the things that used to give me a sense of peace,” he told The Star.

When a family member adds money to a prisoner’s account for a book, he said, that money can be diverted to pay restitution costs. He said the DOC keeps chipping away at the small things that help prisoners feel human, which makes them lose hope and turn to drugs. “Taking, taking, taking, it’s not solving anything,” Johnson said.

Benjamin Cope, a prisoner at Crossroads Correctional Center, about an hour north of Kansas City, said ordering books now is a hassle. Eife said that Prison Health News, which was founded in 2003, is exploring various legal options after their newsletters began getting rejected by Missouri prisons shortly before the new policy went into effect last year. The newsletters contain information about health issues that impact people who are incarcerated and answer questions sent in by prisoners. In August 2023, 20 of the 32 copies they sent to Missouri prisoners were returned. That number grew with the winter 2023 and the spring 2024 editions. It also spread from one institution to seven of the state’s prisons.

“My understanding is that this is happening because of this new policy,” Eife said. She noted that the newsletters are sent directly from the printing press, so there is no way they are being laced with drugs. “The work that we do is to help people and nothing that we send would be something that questions or weakens the security of the system or creates any kind of risk for the people that are incarcerated, the people that work in the prisons, or the security of the system in general,” she said. She also said that it was important for prisoners to get health information because of the challenges they face with the quality of health care within prisons, to learn about preventative health measures and because of the unique circumstances incarceration presents when it comes to things like communicable diseases.