This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. See id., at 381-382 (Lasker, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part) (asserted governmental interest of punishing crime sufficiently important to justify deprivation of right); see generally Mandel v. Bradley, These incidents of marriage, like the religious and personal aspects of the marriage commitment, are unaffected by the fact of confinement or the pursuit of legitimate corrections goals. WA Supreme Court Opinions and Cases | FindLaw exaggerated response to such security objectives. Prison administration is, moreover, a task that has been committed to the responsibility of those branches, and separation of powers concerns counsel a policy of judicial restraint. The Court's final reason for concluding that the Renz prohibition on inmate-to-inmate correspondence is reasonable is its belief that it would be "impossible" to read all such correspondence sent or received by the inmates at Renz. The witness speculated that they must have used the mails to plan their escape. See also id., at 187. When Ms. Halford was asked why the prison officials did not read all of the inmate mail, she gave this response: [ Freedom of Speech and the Role of the Government: Government arbitrary or irrational. These cases hold that a reasonable relation to a legitimate penological interest suffices to establish the constitutionality of a prison regulation. We have found it important to inquire whether prison regulations restricting inmates' First Amendment rights operated in a neutral fashion, without regard to the content of the expression. The term "compelling" is not defined, but prison officials testified at trial that generally only a pregnancy or the birth of an illegitimate child would be considered a compelling reason. of Justice, Prison Gangs: Their Extent, Nature and Impact on Prisons 64-65 (1985) - logically is furthered by the restriction on prisoner-to-prisoner correspondence. [482 Also, the broad discretion the regulations accord wardens is rationally related to security interests. 1. In the Court of Appeals' view, prison officials could meet the problem of inmate conspiracies by exercising their authority to open and read all prisoner mail. Dickson noted that prison authorities are limited in what they can and cannot deny or give a level 2 inmate, who has already been deprived of most privileges, and that the officials believe that the specified items are legitimate as incentives for inmate growth. Rights of Prisoners | The First Amendment Encyclopedia Neither of them, and indeed, no other witness, even mentioned the possibility of the use of secret codes by inmates. In September 2022, Plaintiffs significant other sent him It is not readily apparent, however, why hardback books, which can be scanned for contraband by electronic devices and fluoroscopes, see Bell v. Wolfish, supra, at 574 (MARSHALL, J., dissenting), are qualitatively different in this respect from inmate correspondence, which can be written in codes not readily subject to detection; or why coordinated inmate activity within the same prison is categorically different Pell thus simply teaches that it is appropriate to consider the extent of this burden when "we [are] called upon to balance First Amendment rights against [legitimate] governmental interests." [482 Accordingly, the judgment of the Court of Appeals striking down the Missouri marriage regulation is affirmed; its judgment invalidating the correspondence rule is reversed; and the case is remanded to the Court of Appeals for further proceedings consistent with this opinion. 17 Ms. Halford testified that open correspondence was not abrogated in the Kansas correctional system despite security concerns because her superiors felt that it was "too much of an effort to restrict it, that it tied up staff to send out all forms to the various and sundry institutions. Id., at 596. 377 (SDNY 1973), is not to the contrary. U.S., at 828