Opinion ID: 789358
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Factors Three and Four: Accommodation

Text: 41 We now consider the District Court's analysis of Turner' s third and fourth factors. Under these factors, we must determine whether the right in question can be accommodated without significant negative consequences in terms of efficiency and security, DeHart, 227 F.3d at 58, and whether the prison can easily serve its interests with alternative means without infringing upon the rights of prisoners, Crofton v. Roe, 170 F.3d 957, 959 (9th Cir.1999). The Supreme Court has suggested that the existence of obvious, easy alternatives may be evidence that the regulation is not reasonable, but is an exaggerated response to prison concerns. Thornburgh v. Abbott, 490 U.S. 401, 418, 109 S.Ct. 1874, 104 L.Ed.2d 459 (1989) (citation and quotations omitted). 42 In Fraise, inmates challenged a policy which authorized prison authorities to designate and transfer core members of Security Threat Groups as violative of the First Amendment's Free Exercise Clause, as well as the Equal Protection and Due Process Clauses. 16 The Court determined that the third prong weighed in favor of the DOC and, quoting Turner, stated that [w]hen accommodation of an asserted right will have a significant `ripple effect' on fellow inmates or on prison staff, courts should be particularly deferential to the informed discretion of corrections officials. Fraise, 283 F.3d at 520 (quoting Turner, 482 U.S. at 90, 107 S.Ct. 2254). It is certainly supported by the record, as the District Court repeatedly asserted, that the LTSU Level 2 inmates are some of the most intractable in the Pennsylvania prison system. We cannot agree, however, on the record before us, that accommodation of those prisoners' rights by giving them reasonable access to a limited number of periodicals and photographs would have such a ripple effect. 43 At no point does Banks propose that Level 2 inmates be allowed unmitigated and unregulated access to all periodicals. Rather, Banks proposes, and the District Court discussed, two alternative policies which would accommodate the prisoners' rights. First, the DOC could establish a specific reading period, or several different reading periods, in which guards deliver a single newspaper or magazine to an inmate's cell, if requested, and retrieve it at the close of the period. The DOC could easily control the number of periodicals in his cell at one time, the frequency of the distributions, the amount of time any inmate would be in possession of the materials, as well as the number of inmates who would have periodicals in their cells at any one time. 17 The DOC could also limit the total number of photographs a Level 2 inmate could have in his cell at one time to what they consider a reasonable number. In conjunction with this policy, access to periodicals could be entirely withheld from those individual prisoners who, in the judgment of prison officials, would pose a particular risk given their records, or those inmates who have abused their use of periodicals or photographs. The DOC asserts that such a limited restriction would not prevent Level 2 inmates from using the materials to start fires, fling feces and create weapons and therefore, during the reading period, extra monitoring of cells would be required, thus affecting the prison's resources and possibly the safety of other inmates. 44 We fail to see, however, as discussed above under factor one, how an inmate's hour-long possession of Graterfriends would require further monitoring when at any time that inmate may be in possession of 10 sheets of writing paper, and as many copies of the Watchtower, the Jewish Daily Forward, and the Christian Science Monitor Magazine as can fit in a records center box. As discussed above, the District Court's assumption that prisoners would be more reluctant to use religious materials for such nefarious purposes is unsupported by the record. Furthermore, at any point, the entire LTSU can house no more than 40 inmates, one-tenth of one percent of the state's prison population. (App.95) Even if limited distribution of periodicals were to require additional monitoring, such an accommodation would have a minimal impact on prison resources. 45 Alternatively, individual prisoners could be escorted to the secure mini-law library to read a periodical of their choosing. Again, the District Court found that such an accommodation would intensify security concerns by increasing the amount of inmate movement and thereby placing a formidable burden on LTSU staff. 18 Inmates are already permitted to leave their cells under guard escort to use the library to view legal materials, so individual inmate escort has not been deemed prohibitively burdensome or dangerous by prison administrators. Although it is possible that the demand for mini-law library sessions may increase if the policy were changed, the DOC has not shown how this would significantly increase the burden on prison staff. Superintendent Dickson explained in his deposition that under current LTSU policy, one inmate is allowed out of his cell at a time to visit the law library for one two-hour session. A roster of requests, like a waiting-list, is maintained and fulfilled on a first-come first-serve basis. The amount or frequency of inmate movement is already regulated. If the inmates' rights to read other periodicals were accommodated, that would not change. We fail to see how the mere addition of non-legal and non-religious periodicals to the materials already available to the inmates in the library would create the ripple effect cited by the DOC. In short, the DOC has not shown that a change in the publication ban would mean significantly less liberty and safety for everyone else, guards and other prisoners alike. Abbott, 490 U.S. at 418, 109 S.Ct. 1874 (quoting Turner, 482 U.S. at 92, 107 S.Ct. 2254). 46 Finally, the District Court asserted that the alternatives proposed come at more than a de minimus cost to the DOC's behavior modification goals because the accessibility of periodicals would render the threat of Level 2 segregation toothless as a deterrent. However, the District Court overlooked the extent to which, even without the challenged restriction, Level 2 LTSU segregation is more restrictive than Level 1 in significant respects. For example, Level 1 inmates are permitted two family visits and one fifteen minute telephone call per month. They are also permitted to spend $5.00 per week at the commissary on items defined by the Unit Team. Additionally, while inmates at both levels receive in-cell counseling and visits from chaplains, and can be employed as Unit Janitor, only Level 1 inmates receive compensation as per DC-816 Inmate Compensation System, and only Level 1 inmates are permitted GED and Special Education incell study. (App.32)