Question
I am producing a documentary about a Pennsylvania radical cult group. As part of the documentary, I would like to film interviews with several cult members who are serving prison sentences for the murder. The PA department of corrections has denied my request, citing a five year old policy barring all recording inside PA state prisons. Any help or advice you could provide would be much appreciated.
Answer
Because of security issues, authorities generally have broad discretion to control public access to prisons.The U.S. Supreme Court has said that the media does not have a greater right to access prisons than the general public. Pell v. Procunier, 417 U.S. 817 (1974).
I am not aware of any Pennsylvania authority providing for greater access rights to prisons in that state. As a practical matter, this means that it could be very difficult to challenge the policy against recording.
You might try contacting a Pennsylvania chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists (http://www.spj.org/region1.asp#7) for more information on how the policy has generally been applied to the media and thoughts on how you might proceed.
I hope this information is useful and wish you luck with your documentary.
Asked & Answered posts should not be relied on as legal advice, and FAC makes no guarantees about their completeness or accuracy. All posts carry a date of publication that readers should take note of in assessing their usefulness, given that laws and interpretations of them may change over time. Posts predating Jan. 1, 2023, that discuss the California Public Records Act may contain statute numbers no longer in use. Please see this page for a table showing how the California Public Records Act has been renumbered.