”Across the United States, nearly every state’s prison system offers some form of tablet access to incarcerated people, many of which boast of sizable libraries of eBooks. Knowing this, one might assume that access to books is on the rise for incarcerated folks. Unfortunately, this is not the case. A combination of predatory pricing, woefully inadequate eBook catalogs, and bad policies restricting access to paper literature has exacerbated an already acute book censorship problem in U.S. prison systems.
New data collected by the Prison Banned Books Week campaign focuses on the widespread use of tablet devices in prison systems, as well as their pricing structure and libraries of eBooks. Through a combination of interviews with incarcerated people and a nationwide FOIA campaign to uncover the details of these tablet programs, this campaign has found that, despite offering access to tens of thousands of eBooks, prisons’ tablet programs actually provide little in the way of valuable reading material. The tablets themselves are heavily restricted, and typically only designed by one of two companies: Securus and ViaPath. The campaign also found that the material these programs do provide may not be accessible to many incarcerated individuals.”
jimbsmithjr on
You’d think having inmates read as much as possible is good for everyone involved.
-LeftHookChristian- on
You think there are literally prisoners who reject reading certain books based on the criminal record of the author? That would be a true win for the Reddit jannies.
the_card_guy on
Nononononono….
being in jail means you go away into a dark hole, never to be seen or heard from again. You should be rotting away in there- after all, being in jail means you’re a Bad Person, and society should have no Bad People in it… or at least as few as possible.
When you go to jail, it means you’re no longer human; you’re just an animal…
… I’m actually saying all the above with HEAVY sarcasm. But Reddit seems to be of two minds: either you’re in jail because you smoked some marijuana and thus our justice system is broken; or you’re a bloodthirsty murder/rapist/pedophile who should be thrown into a hole and never see the light of day again. There seems to be no in-betweens.
Although in my own experience- which just means, I was on a jury duty for a criminal- the ones who DO read books are those who know they have to play by what the law says, and thus want to turn it to their own use/advantage. Of course, the system doesn’t want THAT to happen- someone might even find a way out of jail, and there goes the legal slave labor.
Easy_Use_8610 on
Why this book was published ? every criminal should be in jail.
pskindlefire on
I remember when a friend’s son got locked up in county jail for something minor. I went with my friend to see his son, and I remember the jail restricting books to only the Bible and GED study guides. Nothing else was allowed. I asked the front desk officer why this was the case, and he didn’t have a good answer – “it’s just our policy”. Fortunately, his son was only held over the long weekend and we could get him out on the following Tuesday. I asked him what he did, and he said that he just sat in a cell and stared at the walls for the few days he was incarcerated. Stupid, I thought.
bookbrowse on
If there’s not already data on this, it’s pretty intuitive that having access to a full, free library would decrease inmate disruptions or whatever metric they track. It intuitively keeps prisons safer and is also one of the few ways prisoners can better themselves while serving time.
West_Measurement1261 on
I don’t care for the scum of society to being further restricted from what they can do. They already eat for free and have a cell where they can sleep
Balerion_thedread_ on
Almost like they are in there as a form of punishment.
ohleprocy on
I read the Tibetan book of living and dying while in jail for weed. The book changed my life. I can’t fathom the thinking behind banning books in jail.
DunDunTsss on
Good time to write your own.
hankbaumbach on
Oh so it’s not about rehabilitation?
thewimsey on
I find the article’s constant need to denigrate classic works kind of dishonest. Despite there being tens of thousands of eBooks available, there is “little in the way of valuable reading material”; they are “irrelevant and outdated”; “dusty old leftovers” from a “thrift store or dumpster”; they are “antiquated”.
I understand how this aligns with their litigation strategy (it’s hard to complain about books being limited when there are tens of thousands available), but it would be nice for a more neutral article.
I can understand limiting access to like technical manuals that may have info that would help them break out, but I don’t see what the point is of not letting them read at all. Aren’t there studies that say reading can increase empathy? Wouldn’t it be a good thing to allow violent offenders the chance to experience alternate POVs
BloomEPU on
The fact that there are *any* restricted books in prison is kind of fucked up, let them read whatever they like. The worst a book can do is teach them how to escape prison, and if they manage that then really that’s on the prison for having shit security…
cypher50 on
There is no rehabilitation in American prison. We are creating even worse people in the system…
Averla93 on
Prisons should be packed with books
Plenty-Bank5904 on
It’s wild how much power a book can have. I think reading in prison can be a lifeline for some people. It’s a shame they ban titles that could really help them grow.
ThroarkAway on
I sell books online, and have done so for about two decades. That includes hundreds sent to various jails and prisons. ( Some get returned by prison staff, citing policies of which subjects prisoners are allowed to receive )
I express no opinion in this post about whether or not prisoners should have books. I thought that some readers might be interested in what they do read.
**The subjects ordered by prisoners or for them by their friends are substantially different from the non-incarcerated population.** Most notably, at least a third, maybe half of the books are about tattoos. This is at least ten times the incidence of orders to the non-incarcerated.
The next largest category is sexually oriented pictures of women, photos or drawings. Again, this is disproporionately high compared to the non-incarcerated. ( This category, BTW, is often ordered by female buyers to be sent to male inmates )
The third largest category is religious books, almost exclusively Christian religions.
There are several subjects that I have never sold to prisoners: locksmithing ( banned by most, but nobody ever tried ), health/fitness ( surprised me ), and law ( really surprised me )
I don’t offer much fiction, and that fiction that I do offer is mostly classic literature. It is disproprtionately under-represented in prisons.
Between tattoos and pictures of women, at least half of the books that I sell to prisoners can be used/enjoyed by someone who cannot read.
One other odd fact: 99% of orders have been to male inmates. I have no idea why.
=======================
Virtually every jail/prison has a web site, and most include a page that specifies what kind of books can or cannot be delivered to prisoners. Many ban hardcovers, presumably on the assumption that weapons or other contraband can be concealed in the spines. Some ban according to subject, particularly martial arts, locksmithing, or anything sexually oriented.
You can find these pages easily, and I recommend doing so, just to see how tax dollars are being spent.
King-Of-The-Raves on
Contribute to your local prison book exchange volunteer program! If not volunteering or donating, give old books there – libraries have too many on hand to accept new ones usually, but these programs CONSTANTLY need all sorts of books
Ppl usually misunderstand and say “these jails or prisons don’t accept X or Y books” or “they only take new ones or from families” and that’s true – but the benefit of contributing or collabing with these programs is that they administer and seek out and deal with prisons so they’re sending out books to prisons and jails that meet their criteria, and have that established knowledge instead of you or I cold calling r getting rejected donations to prisons – they send out all across the country!
As the article says it’s very valuable for practical and moral reasons, so look up your local prison book exchange program! At least donate books , but if you volunteer it’s actually a pretty engaging, low key low stress volunteer opportunity!
But again – yes, prisons do have restrictions on books, but these programs find out those criteria and work around it, they’ll let you know what kinds of books to choose for each prisoner, they’ll confirm the criteria and send them to relevant prisoners and prisons with personal letters!
It’s super valuable, for moral reasons to give these people a humane escape and tools to better themselves, but practical reasons as it mitigates violence and aggression and gives them tools to pursue life after prison to reduce reoffending
Here are some such orgs, and you can prob find more on their partner tabs / googling your local area!
Books to Prisons (alabama)
Read between the bars (Arizona)
Prisoner literature project (California)
Prison library project (California)
DC books to prisons project (Dc)
Midwest books to prisoners (Illinois)
Prison book program (Massachusetts)
Books behind bars (New York)
NYC books through bars (New York)
Traditional-Bat-8193 on
There’s a yawning chasm between “having nothing to read” and “getting access to the anarchist cookbook in prison.”
FrancescoLogsdon on
From the inspiring stories I have encountered about falsely accused prisoners, learning to take charge of their legal issues by learning law and eventually gaining their freedom. To prisoners have the changes to change their lives because they learned to read and write because of access to books. I think that the ban is unproductive and harmful
Shadowthron8 on
Considering the amount of time to oneself and the undeniably beneficial aspects of books, every prison should have extreme access to literature.
SchrodingersMinou on
Earlier this week, the Wisconsin Department of Corrections has banned the all volunteer nonprofit Wisconsin Books to Prisoners from sending free literature to people locked up in WI. They have a petition to ask the WDOC to continue their work!
I work at a university with a program that supports formerly incarcerated and justice impacted students. A lot of them took college courses while incarcerated and transfer in after their release. We have a little bookshelf in our area but its a lot of older books or social justice related books on it. I didn’t know about this and know I want to start donating some of my personal books to add to the bookshelves.
stuntobor on
> “We might as well be rummaging the dusty old leftovers in some thrift store or back alley dumpster.”
What they are desribing is a library.
Ill-Organization-719 on
Depends on the crime.
Public servants who abuse their public office shouldn’t be allowed to read any books about crime, violence, politics or the reason they are serving life sentences in supermax.
-Hyperion_ on
Write a letter per week. When they respond, write two!
28 Comments
Excerpts from the blog :-
”Across the United States, nearly every state’s prison system offers some form of tablet access to incarcerated people, many of which boast of sizable libraries of eBooks. Knowing this, one might assume that access to books is on the rise for incarcerated folks. Unfortunately, this is not the case. A combination of predatory pricing, woefully inadequate eBook catalogs, and bad policies restricting access to paper literature has exacerbated an already acute book censorship problem in U.S. prison systems.
New data collected by the Prison Banned Books Week campaign focuses on the widespread use of tablet devices in prison systems, as well as their pricing structure and libraries of eBooks. Through a combination of interviews with incarcerated people and a nationwide FOIA campaign to uncover the details of these tablet programs, this campaign has found that, despite offering access to tens of thousands of eBooks, prisons’ tablet programs actually provide little in the way of valuable reading material. The tablets themselves are heavily restricted, and typically only designed by one of two companies: Securus and ViaPath. The campaign also found that the material these programs do provide may not be accessible to many incarcerated individuals.”
You’d think having inmates read as much as possible is good for everyone involved.
You think there are literally prisoners who reject reading certain books based on the criminal record of the author? That would be a true win for the Reddit jannies.
Nononononono….
being in jail means you go away into a dark hole, never to be seen or heard from again. You should be rotting away in there- after all, being in jail means you’re a Bad Person, and society should have no Bad People in it… or at least as few as possible.
When you go to jail, it means you’re no longer human; you’re just an animal…
… I’m actually saying all the above with HEAVY sarcasm. But Reddit seems to be of two minds: either you’re in jail because you smoked some marijuana and thus our justice system is broken; or you’re a bloodthirsty murder/rapist/pedophile who should be thrown into a hole and never see the light of day again. There seems to be no in-betweens.
Although in my own experience- which just means, I was on a jury duty for a criminal- the ones who DO read books are those who know they have to play by what the law says, and thus want to turn it to their own use/advantage. Of course, the system doesn’t want THAT to happen- someone might even find a way out of jail, and there goes the legal slave labor.
Why this book was published ? every criminal should be in jail.
I remember when a friend’s son got locked up in county jail for something minor. I went with my friend to see his son, and I remember the jail restricting books to only the Bible and GED study guides. Nothing else was allowed. I asked the front desk officer why this was the case, and he didn’t have a good answer – “it’s just our policy”. Fortunately, his son was only held over the long weekend and we could get him out on the following Tuesday. I asked him what he did, and he said that he just sat in a cell and stared at the walls for the few days he was incarcerated. Stupid, I thought.
If there’s not already data on this, it’s pretty intuitive that having access to a full, free library would decrease inmate disruptions or whatever metric they track. It intuitively keeps prisons safer and is also one of the few ways prisoners can better themselves while serving time.
I don’t care for the scum of society to being further restricted from what they can do. They already eat for free and have a cell where they can sleep
Almost like they are in there as a form of punishment.
I read the Tibetan book of living and dying while in jail for weed. The book changed my life. I can’t fathom the thinking behind banning books in jail.
Good time to write your own.
Oh so it’s not about rehabilitation?
I find the article’s constant need to denigrate classic works kind of dishonest. Despite there being tens of thousands of eBooks available, there is “little in the way of valuable reading material”; they are “irrelevant and outdated”; “dusty old leftovers” from a “thrift store or dumpster”; they are “antiquated”.
I understand how this aligns with their litigation strategy (it’s hard to complain about books being limited when there are tens of thousands available), but it would be nice for a more neutral article.
One that at least mentioned this, for example:
https://www.cnn.com/2024/08/20/us/prison-worker-death-fentanyl-charges/index.html
I can understand limiting access to like technical manuals that may have info that would help them break out, but I don’t see what the point is of not letting them read at all. Aren’t there studies that say reading can increase empathy? Wouldn’t it be a good thing to allow violent offenders the chance to experience alternate POVs
The fact that there are *any* restricted books in prison is kind of fucked up, let them read whatever they like. The worst a book can do is teach them how to escape prison, and if they manage that then really that’s on the prison for having shit security…
There is no rehabilitation in American prison. We are creating even worse people in the system…
Prisons should be packed with books
It’s wild how much power a book can have. I think reading in prison can be a lifeline for some people. It’s a shame they ban titles that could really help them grow.
I sell books online, and have done so for about two decades. That includes hundreds sent to various jails and prisons. ( Some get returned by prison staff, citing policies of which subjects prisoners are allowed to receive )
I express no opinion in this post about whether or not prisoners should have books. I thought that some readers might be interested in what they do read.
**The subjects ordered by prisoners or for them by their friends are substantially different from the non-incarcerated population.** Most notably, at least a third, maybe half of the books are about tattoos. This is at least ten times the incidence of orders to the non-incarcerated.
The next largest category is sexually oriented pictures of women, photos or drawings. Again, this is disproporionately high compared to the non-incarcerated. ( This category, BTW, is often ordered by female buyers to be sent to male inmates )
The third largest category is religious books, almost exclusively Christian religions.
There are several subjects that I have never sold to prisoners: locksmithing ( banned by most, but nobody ever tried ), health/fitness ( surprised me ), and law ( really surprised me )
I don’t offer much fiction, and that fiction that I do offer is mostly classic literature. It is disproprtionately under-represented in prisons.
Between tattoos and pictures of women, at least half of the books that I sell to prisoners can be used/enjoyed by someone who cannot read.
One other odd fact: 99% of orders have been to male inmates. I have no idea why.
=======================
Virtually every jail/prison has a web site, and most include a page that specifies what kind of books can or cannot be delivered to prisoners. Many ban hardcovers, presumably on the assumption that weapons or other contraband can be concealed in the spines. Some ban according to subject, particularly martial arts, locksmithing, or anything sexually oriented.
You can find these pages easily, and I recommend doing so, just to see how tax dollars are being spent.
Contribute to your local prison book exchange volunteer program! If not volunteering or donating, give old books there – libraries have too many on hand to accept new ones usually, but these programs CONSTANTLY need all sorts of books
Ppl usually misunderstand and say “these jails or prisons don’t accept X or Y books” or “they only take new ones or from families” and that’s true – but the benefit of contributing or collabing with these programs is that they administer and seek out and deal with prisons so they’re sending out books to prisons and jails that meet their criteria, and have that established knowledge instead of you or I cold calling r getting rejected donations to prisons – they send out all across the country!
As the article says it’s very valuable for practical and moral reasons, so look up your local prison book exchange program! At least donate books , but if you volunteer it’s actually a pretty engaging, low key low stress volunteer opportunity!
But again – yes, prisons do have restrictions on books, but these programs find out those criteria and work around it, they’ll let you know what kinds of books to choose for each prisoner, they’ll confirm the criteria and send them to relevant prisoners and prisons with personal letters!
It’s super valuable, for moral reasons to give these people a humane escape and tools to better themselves, but practical reasons as it mitigates violence and aggression and gives them tools to pursue life after prison to reduce reoffending
Here are some such orgs, and you can prob find more on their partner tabs / googling your local area!
Books to Prisons (alabama)
Read between the bars (Arizona)
Prisoner literature project (California)
Prison library project (California)
DC books to prisons project (Dc)
Midwest books to prisoners (Illinois)
Prison book program (Massachusetts)
Books behind bars (New York)
NYC books through bars (New York)
There’s a yawning chasm between “having nothing to read” and “getting access to the anarchist cookbook in prison.”
From the inspiring stories I have encountered about falsely accused prisoners, learning to take charge of their legal issues by learning law and eventually gaining their freedom. To prisoners have the changes to change their lives because they learned to read and write because of access to books. I think that the ban is unproductive and harmful
Considering the amount of time to oneself and the undeniably beneficial aspects of books, every prison should have extreme access to literature.
Earlier this week, the Wisconsin Department of Corrections has banned the all volunteer nonprofit Wisconsin Books to Prisoners from sending free literature to people locked up in WI. They have a petition to ask the WDOC to continue their work!
https://win.newmode.net/prisonbannedbooksweek/wisconsinbookstoprison
I work at a university with a program that supports formerly incarcerated and justice impacted students. A lot of them took college courses while incarcerated and transfer in after their release. We have a little bookshelf in our area but its a lot of older books or social justice related books on it. I didn’t know about this and know I want to start donating some of my personal books to add to the bookshelves.
> “We might as well be rummaging the dusty old leftovers in some thrift store or back alley dumpster.”
What they are desribing is a library.
Depends on the crime.
Public servants who abuse their public office shouldn’t be allowed to read any books about crime, violence, politics or the reason they are serving life sentences in supermax.
Write a letter per week. When they respond, write two!