RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) – North Carolina prison inmates can receive publications while incarcerated, but the reading material is highly regulated under what advocates say is a vague policy often enforced without explanation.

Department of Correction officials have banned magazines such as GQ and Cosmopolitan, and even self-help books, prisoner advocates say. One inmate recently sued the department because he couldn’t read magazines and newspapers about gay life.

“We have had many letters from prisoners complaining that magazines and other publications were being kept from them for what seem to be arbitrary reasons,” said J. Phillip Griffin, a lawyer with N.C. Prisoner Legal Services who is representing the inmate who filed the suit.

“Their constitutional rights are balanced against the fact that they are prisoners and the institutional needs, such as the need for security and order in the prison.”

The state prison system’s policy bans access to publications that might pose a security threat or that describe violence, criminal activity or sexually explicit behavior.

The policy allows mailroom staffers wide discretion to review reading material before giving it to prisoners, and the prison warden or superintendent records any decision to withhold a publication.

The state chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union and other advocates want prison officials to further explain their criteria for banning certain reading material.

“Of course, the correction officials have a responsibility to protect the prisoner, so they often use that as a reason to ban certain materials,” said American Civil Liberties spokesperson Jody Kent.

Joseph Urbaniak filed a lawsuit against corrections officials, saying his rights were violated when prison officials withheld several publications about gay life, including The Advocate and the New York Blade.

Department of Correction spokesperson Keith Acree said some magazines – including Newsweek, Reader’s Digest, Ebony and Entertainment Weekly – are available in some prison libraries.

Urbaniak, who is serving up to 50 years for taking indecent liberties with a child, said in his lawsuit that prison officials sometimes didn’t explain why they denied some publications. The lawsuit also accuses officials of banning entire subscriptions, violating a policy that requires a review of each issue.

The ACLU asked Department of Correction officials to provide a list of publications that were banned. In a letter to the organization, an attorney for the department said it planned to change the review process but didn’t provide details.