Saturday, January 23, 2010

Censorship

Through some oversight, I have so far failed to explain the restrictions under which I write.

Now that the Ministry have shifted from their stance of trying to shut me down to one of ignoring me completely, I am able to write reasonably freely. Nevertheless, there are limits.

These are the rules on correspondence which prisoners must adhere to: I may not identify prison staff or fellow prisoners. I may not discuss the finer pints of explosives recipes, poisons or other destructive devices. And I shouldn't discuss my crime, or that of others, except in the wider context of criminal justice debate.

Apart from that, I'm pretty much able to say whatever the hell I like. Even with the above restrictions, I don't feel at all constrained. I have never written with these restrictions in mind and never will; self censorship is even more poisonous that than censorship imposed. And whilst I would love to name individual staff and parade their inadequacies before the world, that would hardly add to the sum of human knowledge and would be a mere personal indulgence.

And you can be assured that if the management did prevent my sending out any specific post, then I and my lawyers will be overjoyed at the opportunity to hoof them into court, all the while giving you all a blow by blow account.

3 comments:

  1. Just curious what the procedure is by which you receive your mail and how often is your mail read by the guards?

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  2. As a Category-C prison, mail would be handed in unsealed, though only a random 5% would be read by staff. This excludes people targeted by the Security Dept, so Ben will be wise to assume all mail is read. Incoming mail is issued unsealed, with 5% being read.

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