opinion: Everett R. LYON, Dennis E. Fisher, Richard A. Lamphere, Edward W. Don, Russell J. Fitz, Robert R. Padgett and Clayton C. Manning, Appellants, v. Hal FARRIER, Crispus C. Nix, Paul Hedgepeth, Larry Moline, Correctional Officers Rooney, Woodall, Pyley, Ware, Gutman, Sliffer, Clostermery, Robinson, Leach, Ossion, McMaines, Fisher, Blythe, and Eight Unknown Corrections Officers, all individually and in their official capacities, Appellees.
  No. 83-2062.
  United States Court of Appeals, Eighth Circuit.
  Submitted March 14, 1984.
  Decided March 20, 1984.
  Thomas J. Miller, Atty. Gen. of Iowa, Gordon E. Allen, Sp. Asst. Atty. Gen., Layne M. Lindebak Asst. Atty. Gen., Des Moines, Iowa, for appellees.
  Everett R. Lyon, Dennis E. Fisher, pro se.
  Before HENLEY, Senior Circuit Judge, and JOHN R. GIBSON and FAGG, Circuit Judges.
  PER CURIAM.
  • Appellants are protective custody inmates of the Iowa State Penitentiary (ISP) who brought a civil rights action under 42 U.S.C. § 1983. Appellants alleged that prison officials unconstitutionally deprived them of their personal property. The district court dismissed appellants’ claims and this appeal followed. For reversal appellants argue that the district court erred (1) in finding that they were not denied equal protection with respect to female and general population inmates; (2) in holding that they were not deprived of property without due process of law; (3) in holding that appellant Fitz had not shown that destruction of a painting possessed by him was without due process; and (4) in determining that the uncorroborated testimony of appellant Padgett was insufficient to find a denial of his right of access to the courts. We affirm.
  On September 2, 1981, a riot occurred at ISP. For health and security reasons, the warden issued a directive on September 28, 1981, limiting the amount and types of personal property inmates could keep in their cells. During the riot, prison officials often had a difficult time distinguishing inmates from other persons because inmates were allowed to wear a wide variety of street clothing. The warden’s directive severely restricted the clothing inmates were permitted to possess and wear. In addition, fire officials had inspected the prison and determined that the large amounts of property inmates were storing in their cells created a fire hazard. The warden’s property reduction order was in direct response to these problems.
  To implement this new policy the warden ordered a series of shakedown searches between September 1981 and January 1982. Inmates whose property was seized could direct that it be mailed home, donated to charity, or destroyed. Appellants were in protective custody at the time of these shakedowns. Although prison officials removed numerous items of clothing, grooming implements, appliances, and hobbycraft materials from appellants’ cells, these articles were forwarded to appellants’ relatives, returned, or stored in the prison’s property room. A painting in the cell of appellant Fitz, which belonged to a former inmate, was removed and destroyed as contraband pursuant to a prison regulation forbidding inmates to possess or store another’s property. Prison officials also allegedly removed from the cell of appellant Padgett some of his legal materials pertaining to Veterans’ Administration and Social Security proceedings.
  Appellants contend that rules pertaining to their possession of personal property are different from the rules applicable to prisoners in the general population at ISP and to both male and female inmates at other penal institutions in Iowa, and that these differences violate equal protection guarantees. We begin our analysis by noting that “[pjrison administrators * * * should be accorded wide-ranging deference in the adoption and execution of policies and practices that in their judgment are needed to preserve internal order and discipline and to maintain institutional security.” Bell v. Wolfish, 441 U.S. 520, 547, 99 S.Ct. 1861, 1878, 60 L.Ed.2d 447 (1979), quoted in Hewitt v. Helms, 459 U.S. 460, 103 S.Ct. 864, 872, 74 L.Ed.2d 675 (1983). To succeed on an equal protection claim the appellants were required to show that they received treatment which was invidiously dissimilar to that received by other inmates. Peck v. Hoff, 660 F.2d 371, 373 (8th Cir.1981); Burns v. Swenson, 430 F.2d 771, 778 (8th Cir.1970), cert. denied, 404 U.S. 1062, 92 S.Ct. 743, 30 L.Ed.2d 751 (1972). Appellants have not shown that the claimed differences in treatment were on account of sex or any other basis that might require heightened scrutiny. In view of the special status of protective custody inmates vis-a-vis other inmates incarcerated at ISP and at other institutions, and in the wake of the prison riot, prison officials were well within their authority in limiting the amounts and types of personal property possessed by appellants.
  Appellants claim that the warden’s property reduction order deprived them of property without due process of law. In Bell v. Wolfish, supra, 441 U.S. at 554, 99 S.Ct. at 1882, the Supreme Court stated that the “due process rights of prisoners and pretrial detainees [against the deprivation of their property without due process of law] are not absolute; they are subject to reasonable limitation or retraction in light of the legitimate security concerns of the institution.” (Emphasis added.) The property reduction order in the present case was adopted both to reduce a fire hazard caused by the abundance of personal property prisoners were keeping in their cells and to make prisoners easily distinguishable from other persons in the event of a disturbance. The property reduction policy was a measured response to serious health and security problems, and “substitution of judicial judgment for that of the expert prison administrators in matters such as this is inappropriate.” Id.
  We find without merit the argument that destruction of a painting possessed by appellant Fitz constituted a deprivation of property without due process of law. The rules of the prison did not allow Fitz to possess the painting since it belonged to someone else. Because the property was contraband, Fitz cannot seriously argue that he had a protected property interest in it. Therefore, the destruction of the painting did not implicate any due process concerns. See Board of Regents v. Roth, 408 U.S. 564, 576-78, 92 S.Ct. 2701, 2708-09, 33 L.Ed.2d 548 (1972).
  Finally, appellant Padgett testified at the evidentiary hearing that prison officials confiscated from his cell legal materials regarding Veterans’ Administration and Social Security proceedings. The district court accepted the magistrate’s determination that Padgett’s uncorroborated testimony was insufficient to support a finding of a violation of his right of access to the courts. This factual finding is governed by the clearly erroneous standard of review on appeal. See Fed.R.Civ.P. 52(a). Appellants have presented no evidence indicating that this finding was clearly erroneous.
  Accordingly, the judgment of the district court is affirmed.
instruction: What follows is an opinion from a United States Court of Appeals.
  Intervenors who participated as parties at the courts of appeals should be counted as either appellants or respondents when it can be determined whose position they supported. For example, if there were two plaintiffs who lost in district court, appealed, and were joined by four intervenors who also asked the court of appeals to reverse the district court, the number of appellants should be coded as six.
  In some cases there is some confusion over who should be listed as the appellant and who as the respondent. This confusion is primarily the result of the presence of multiple docket numbers consolidated into a single appeal that is disposed of by a single opinion. Most frequently, this occurs when there are cross appeals and/or when one litigant sued (or was sued by) multiple litigants that were originally filed in district court as separate actions. The coding rule followed in such cases should be to go strictly by the designation provided in the title of the case. The first person listed in the title as the appellant should be coded as the appellant even if they subsequently appeared in a second docket number as the respondent and regardless of who was characterized as the appellant in the opinion.
  To clarify the coding conventions, consider the following hypothetical case in which the US Justice Department sues a labor union to strike down a racially discriminatory seniority system and the corporation (siding with the position of its union) simultaneously sues the government to get an injunction to block enforcement of the relevant civil rights law. From a district court decision that consolidated the two suits and declared the seniority system illegal but refused to impose financial penalties on the union, the corporation appeals and the government and union file cross appeals from the decision in the suit brought by the government. Assume the case was listed in the Federal Reporter as follows:
  United States of America,
  Plaintiff, Appellant
  v
  International Brotherhood of Widget Workers,AFL-CIO
  Defendant, Appellee.
  International Brotherhood of Widget Workers,AFL-CIO
  Defendants, Cross-appellants
  v
  United States of America.
  Widgets, Inc. & Susan Kuersten Sheehan, President & Chairman
  of the Board
  Plaintiff, Appellants,
  v
  United States of America,
  Defendant, Appellee.
  This case should be coded as follows:Appellant = United States, Respondents = International Brotherhood of Widget Workers Widgets, Inc., Total number of appellants = 1, Number of appellants that fall into the category "the federal government, its agencies, and officials" = 1, Total number of respondents = 3, Number of respondents that fall into the category "private business and its executives" = 2, Number of respondents that fall into the category "groups and associations" = 1.
  Your task is to identify the state of the first listed state or local government agency that is an appellant.
choices: not Alabama Alaska Arizona Arkansas California Colorado Connecticut Delaware Florida Georgia Hawaii Idaho Illinois Indiana Iowa Kansas Kentucky Louisiana Maine Maryland Massachussets Michigan Minnesota Mississippi Missouri Montana Nebraska Nevada New New New New North North Ohio Oklahoma Oregon Pennsylvania Rhode South South Tennessee Texas Utah Vermont Virginia Washington West Wisconsin Wyoming Virgin Puerto District Guam not Panama