## Facts

- Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) regulations generally allowed inmates to receive publications from outside sources.
- Wardens could reject an incoming publication if it was “detrimental to the security, good order, or discipline of the institution” or might facilitate criminal activity.
- The regulations barred rejection solely because content was religious, philosophical, political, social, sexual, unpopular, or repugnant, and required review of each issue rather than blanket bans.
- Federal inmates, joined by certain publishers, challenged the regulations and the exclusion of 46 specific publications as violating the First Amendment.
- The district court applied a deferential standard and upheld the regulations on their face without deciding the legality of each of the 46 exclusions.
- The D.C. Circuit applied Procunier v. Martinez, held the regulations deficient, and ordered individualized determinations for the excluded publications.

## Issues

1. Whether restrictions on incoming publications to prisoners are governed by Procunier v. Martinez or by Turner v. Safley’s “reasonably related to legitimate penological interests” standard.
2. Whether the BOP regulations authorizing rejection of incoming publications for security and related reasons violate the First Amendment on their face.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court reversed the D.C. Circuit’s use of Martinez and held that Turner supplies the governing standard for regulations affecting incoming publications to prisoners.
- The Court limited Martinez to regulations concerning outgoing personal correspondence from prisoners and disapproved its use to impose a categorical rule for incoming materials.
- Applying Turner, the Court held the BOP regulations facially valid because they were reasonably related to legitimate penological interests, chiefly prison security.
- The case was remanded for further proceedings concerning the constitutionality of the regulations as applied to the 46 excluded publications.

## Legal Principles

- Prison regulations that impinge on First Amendment rights are generally valid if reasonably related to legitimate penological interests (Turner).
- Procunier v. Martinez’s more demanding standard is confined to regulations governing outgoing personal correspondence from prisoners.
- Security-based restrictions on incoming publications may be upheld when the governmental objective is legitimate and neutral and the regulation bears a rational relationship to that objective.
- Courts owe substantial deference to prison officials’ judgments about institutional security and order, while leaving room for as-applied challenges to particular censorship decisions.

## Conclusion

The Court upheld federal prison regulations permitting wardens to exclude incoming publications for security-related reasons under Turner’s reasonableness test, limited Martinez to outgoing prisoner mail, and remanded to evaluate whether the specific exclusions of 46 publications were constitutional as applied.


Thornburgh v. Abbott, 490 U.S. 401 (1989)