It's a lengthy, bureaucratic regulation. DOC amended Federal postal laws in order to controvert the safeguards to the public and the prisoners. Citizens, wives, and firms are forbidden to send nude photographs of any kind to prisoners and even adult prisoners are not permitted to receive nude photos which are not obscene. While there are many other ugly provisions of this ill-conceived regulation, these are some of the highlights. Like most Department of Corrections regulations, this one was imposed in secret and in violation of Pennsylvania law.
Several laws seek to protect citizens from unsound and illegal regulations.
Typically, the Department of Corrections has ignored and violated all of them. The Commonwealth Documents Law is intended to prevent secret regulations which infringe important rights. It requires that all proposed regulations and policies must be given an opportunity to express its opinions and objections to the proposed regulation. DOC's mail regulation seriously infringes the rights of both free and imprisoned citizens, but DOC went ahead with the regulation in open defiance of the Documents Act. Another law, the Commonwealth Attorney's Act, provides that all new regulations must be submitted to the Attorney General before enforcement.