CRANSTON — The Department of Corrections is willing to back off language in a policy that critics say “reeks of censorship” and would limit the media’s access to inmates inside the Adult Correctional Institutions.

Spokeswoman Tracey Poole said the department would change its proposed media-access policy in the coming weeks following an outcry from civil libertarians, journalists and even former prisoners.

Among the likely changes, Poole said, was a provision that would allow corrections officials to deny interviews with an inmate if they deemed it insufficiently “sensitive to the feelings and needs of crime victims.”

“That one we really need to look at,” she said last night, following a public hearing in which critics repeatedly blasted the policy.

The proposed changes, would, also:

•Bar interviews with out-of-state inmates.

•Delete from current regulations a provision that protects a reporter’s notes and recordings from being reviewed by department employees after an interview.

•Require that a corrections official always be present while interviews are conducted.

•Require media to submit the subject matter of proposed interviews and limit discussion to the approved purpose.

WPRI Channel 12 reporter Tim White was among those who criticized the proposal last night.

“Our role as reporters is as a watchdog. The Department of Corrections is a taxpayer-funded institution,” he said. “Prisons in general are one of the most unchecked arms of government. The proposed language, I think, only serves to perpetuate a system that’s already cloaked in secrecy.”

There wasn’t a specific incident that prompted the state to revise its media-access policy, according to Poole. The proposed changes largely reflect the department’s practices over the past year. During all media interviews, for example, she said a prison official currently is present.

The proposed changes reflect a need to balance safety with the public’s access to information, according to Gina Caruolo, of the Department of Corrections policy unit.

But Peter Slom was skeptical. He had spent two years of his life locked up at the ACI.

He returned to the prison complex last night after reading about the hearing in the newspaper.

“A lot of times people have a story they need to tell,” Slom said.

He never wanted to talk to the media while behind bars. He said he wasn’t treated poorly. But he would have wanted to have the opportunity to speak out in case something happened. He said he probably wouldn’t have if a prison official was standing over his shoulder.

“I want to make sure if there’s something wrong — if there is institutional abuse — they could talk,” said Slom, who now sits on the board of directors for the Family Life Center, a Providence nonprofit that assists inmates after their release.

Prisoner abuse made headlines earlier in the year when a former prisoner accused an ACI guard of forcing him to taste his own feces and hitting him with a telephone book. The state settled the case with the inmate in February for $120,000.

Those who spoke during the hearing pelted Department of Corrections officials with criticism. No one spoke in favor of the proposed changes last night.

The media should have the right to speak to prisoners without government interference, said Amy Vitale, of the Rhode Island Affiliate of the American Civil Liberties Union. The issues at stake go directly to freedom of speech and freedom of the press outlined in the Constitution, she said.

“This is something that really reeks of censorship in our view,” she said.

John Gallagher, of the Providence advocacy group Direct Action for Rights and Equality, agreed.

“We need accountability,” he said. “We need to hear what the inmates have to say. We don’t have to believe what they say. But we should be able to hear what they have to say.”

While prison officials said they planned to incorporate some of the changes suggested last night, the final media-access policy won’t be released for about a month.

“The intent is, in some ways, to help the media,” Poole said.

speoples@projo.com