Prisons Given New Power on Books, Visits : Supreme Court Upsets Lower Court’s Ruling on Inmates’ Rights

The Supreme Court today gave prison officials sweeping power to limit what inmates may read and who may visit them.

Voting 6 to 3 in a case from Kentucky, the justices said officials are not required to explain why they bar an inmate from having visitors.

The court rejected arguments that the state, by establishing a system permitting visits, endowed inmates with a new right to see outsiders. Prisoners do not have a right in such cases to “due process”--for example, a hearing or an explanation--when they are denied a visit by someone, the court said.

By the same 6-3 split, the justices overturned a ruling by a federal appeals court here that limited the authority of officials to censor reading material behind bars.

‘Broad Discretion’

“Where the regulations at issue concern the entry of materials into the prison . . . a regulation which gives prison authorities broad discretion is appropriate,” Justice Harry A. Blackmun wrote for the court.

Blackmun said regulations must be upheld as long as they are “reasonably related to legitimate penological interests.”

The court upheld the power of wardens to ban any publication at federal prisons that they believe is “detrimental to the security, good order or discipline of the institution or . . . might facilitate criminal activity.”

Among the prisoners who challenged the publications rule is Jack Henry Abbott, a convicted murderer and bank robber who achieved notoriety after he was befriended by Norman Mailer and other prominent writers and editors.

Stabbing After Release

Six weeks after Abbott was freed in a work-release program in 1981 he stabbed to death an aspiring actor outside a New York City restaurant where the victim was working as a waiter.

Abbott’s book on prison life, “In the Belly of the Beast,” was critically acclaimed.

The Supreme Court today ordered further hearings to determine whether prisoners should be allowed to read any of 46 publications officials want to ban.

But the justices said the officials do not have the burden of proving that any of the publications threaten security, order or rehabilitation at the prison.

Leftist Paper Cited

Among the publications on the list, for example, was an issue of the Call, a left-wing newspaper that included an article charging “inhumane treatment . . . by racist guards” in federal prisons.

Today’s ruling is a victory for the Justice Department, which urged the high court to overturn a ruling by the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals here.

Department officials cited uprisings in 1987 by inmates from Cuba in two U.S. prisons as evidence that information from the outside can have “grave consequences” in a prison.

The government said that between Sept. 1, 1986, and Aug. 31, 1987, about 1,700 publications were withheld out of 1.8 million sent to federal inmates.