A Special Apology to All Our Imprisoned Subscribers

Posted on November 22nd, 2011 1:48pm by Tim Rogers
Filed under Media

I’m not sure how many subscribers we have behind bars. We’ve got a few. Every so often, we get letters from them. Yesterday, though, we got a letter from the Mail System Coordinators Panel of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice. Seems our October issue did not make it to our incarcerated subscribers. Reason? The ESD sex scandal story. The magazine was rejected in accordance with Policy 3.91: “A specific factual determination has been made that the publication is detrimental to prisoner’s rehabilitation because it would encourage deviate criminal sexual behavior.” Huh.

Sorry, guys. (And girls?)

11 comments

  1. I bet the Mail System Coordinators feel empowered after writing you a letter.

    @ 2:14 pm on November 22, 2011

  2. Without the media to tell us about the bad, we’d all be good.

    Makes sense.

    Now off to read Forbes and buy a yacht.

    @ 2:39 pm on November 22, 2011

  3. So the Texas Penal System is on the side of the ESD supporters? D Magazine seems to be losing the battle with people who deem themselves to be the morality police.

    @ 2:42 pm on November 22, 2011

  4. Perhaps appropriately labeling it a ’sexual abuse scandal’ would be a good start. ‘Sex scandal’ implies two consenting adults, and essentially blurs the line between criminal and non-criminal acts. Of course, ’sex scandal’ is a much more palatable and salacious headline than ’sexual abuse scandal’. No one wants to read about that. It only affects 1 in 4 girls and 1 in 6 boys by the time they reach age 18.

    @ 3:05 pm on November 22, 2011

  5. Perhaps you should write the Mail System Coordinators Panel of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice back and tell them to “s#ck a bag of d*cks.”

    @ 4:01 pm on November 22, 2011

  6. Banned to discourage role-playing scenarios.

    @ 4:21 pm on November 22, 2011

  7. @ ernest
    I wonder if they also banned any media that dealt with the Penn State story?

    @ 4:45 pm on November 22, 2011

  8. D Magazine, building moral fiber every day. Except on Cell Block #9.

    @ 5:23 pm on November 22, 2011

  9. “[P]risoner’s rehabilitation”. Funny. Yet not.

    @ 5:23 pm on November 22, 2011

  10. Did they ban the Tesar issue? You know it dropped the f-bomb. Not sure you’re aware of that.

    @ 8:22 pm on November 22, 2011

  11. No interwebs in TX prisons, so I fear that your apology will fall on deaf ears.

    TDCJ has certain hot-button issues and they’re an instant ban. One is anything that even hints at child sex crimes.

    Semi-recent overview of banned books: http://www.texascivilrightsproject.org/?p=2803

    See experience of author of book about TX Prison system: http://www.statesman.com/news/local/authors-decry-being-locked-out-of-lockup-687481.html?printArticle=y

    @ 8:44 am on November 23, 2011

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