The Rhode Island Department of Corrections maximum security for the Adult Correctional Institutions in Cranston. Sonja Deyoe, a cooperating attorney with the ACLU of Rhode Island, claims she was required to relinquish legal documents to custodial staff when visiting a client on Oct. 3, 2024. (Christopher Shea/Rhode Island Current)
Rhode Island prison officials routinely interfere when attorneys are sharing confidential information during visits with clients behind bars, and also confiscate and inspect mail to prisoners in violation of their constitutional rights, according to a lawsuit filed Wednesday in Providence Superior Court by the ACLU of Rhode Island.
That includes withholding mail from a state lawmaker sent to prisoners at the Adult Correctional Institutions (ACI) in Cranston asking them to complete a survey relating to the Rhode Island Department of Corrections (DOC) “Solitary Confinement Policy,” the complaint states.
The lawsuit against DOC Director Wayne Salisbury, Jr. and the entire corrections department names two incarcerated men and the Rhode Island Center for Justice as co-plaintiffs: Richard Paiva, a prisoner in the ACI Maximum Security facility and Willie Washington, a prisoner in the Medium Security facility. It claims the state’s prison system informally adopted a new practice governing mail and attorney visits in the past year that the ACLU called “arbitrary, capricious and unregulated actions.”