Mr. Richard A. Lanham, Sr.
Commissioner of Correction
6776 Reisterstown Road
Baltimore, Maryland 21215
Re: Data Diskettes in the Institutions
Dear Mr. Lanham:
It is continuing to come to my attention that a great many inmates in all parts of the Division have had the data diskettes they need to operate the word processing equipment purchased through institutional commissaries removed from them by members of your staff. This is my third letter on this topic since March 9, 1994.
If you remember, I mentioned to you on April 9th at the MPRC Conference the fact that DOC authorized purchase and initial possession of the equipment and the fact there is a movement in at least three institutions to institute litigation under the federal civil rights and State tort statutes. You said you would discuss the matter at the Wardens' Meeting on Tuesday, the 12th. Since then, I understand MCTC has been added to MCIH, Roxbury, MCIJ and ECI in banning diskettes. I have been getting very disturbing hand-written letters since that time.
From a policy standpoint, the intentional withholding of these diskettes, especially from inmates who have been using them for some time, is a crude and barbaric act. It has no grounding in intelligent management of the system or of an individual facility except perhaps to palliate certain staff members without any particular aptitude or familiarity with keyboard-bearing devices.
Far from being a method for inmates to collaborate with each other with subversive intent, the disks were serving the purposes of extending language arts development, cognitive facility, manual dexterity, quality recreation (in the absence of other programming), idleness reduction (at no cost to the Division), and a fighting chance for the inmates to defend themselves from pending criminal charges. It also enabled them to communicate outside the institution thereby increasing their likelihood of success upon release. It also made it possible to live within a restrictive property allowance.
The fact that the administration security staff of the maximum security Penitentiary has long been accustomed to retrieving such disks from the population, reading them on the Lower Level with their own equipment, and returning them to the inmates without change and without hint of security breach testifies as to the proof of utter harmlessness in permitting inmates to store data and information in that mode especially in medium and minimum security.
The data diskette DCIBs should be rescinded immediately and a system-wide DCD permitting data diskettes, however limited, should be implemented in their stead. It is unconscionable in this day and age that State prison inmates should not have unfettered access to this unparalleled educational and instructional tool.
Sincerely,
Nancy Moran
nm
cc: Mr. Bishop Robinson