Opinion ID: 221238
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Impact of Accommodating the Inmates' Exercise of the Restricted Right

Text: The third Turner factor requires us to examine the impact that voiding the regulation would have on prison staff, other inmates, and the allocation of prison resources. Turner, 482 U.S. at 90, 107 S.Ct. 2254. The district court made much of the effect that lifting the ban might have on the amount of mail IDOC officials would have to process, citing increased usage of the Internet in recent years as an indicator of projected growth in the number of persons interested in Internet solicitation of pen-pals. We find the district court's hypothesis that increased Internet usage would lead to increased use of pen-pal sites and therefore an increased amount of incoming mail to prisons tenuous at best. While it is undoubtedly true that Internet usage has increased in recent years, the figures cited do not appear to have been specific to the prison population; furthermore, it cannot be reasonably inferred that the more one uses the Internet, the more one becomes interested in seeking out pen-pals. More relevant to our inquiry is whether lifting the ban would re-open a channel of communication that creates a large potential for fraud to occur. We believe that it would. The record indicates that Tappy spent significant time investigating the inmates' use of pen-pal sites and interviewing persons who felt they had been defrauded; this is not the type of activity prison officials should regularly have to conduct. The results of the investigation were sufficiently unsettling to warrant the implementation of preventive measures against fraud. Therefore, we find that the IDOC was reasonable in its belief that, absent a ban on Internet solicitation, some inmates would continue to exploit the Internet's broad reach and relative anonymity for an improper purpose, including fraud. Not only is such behavior incompatible with the rehabilitative goals of incarceration, it also unduly distracts prison officials from the day-to-day affairs they must manage in order to maintain a safe atmosphere for everyone in the prison environment. The Internet is a breeding ground for mischief of the sort the IDOC Commissioner feared. When prison officials are rational in their belief that, if left unchecked, an activity will lead to fraud, we hold that banning the activity does not violate inmates' First Amendment rights. [3]