# data[].attributes.headline
The books banned for incarcerated readers often parallel those being banned in schools and libraries - books by Black authors, books on the history of racism and fights against oppression, and books that tell queer and trans stories. And yet, book bans and censorship in prisons often get left out of the conversation during Banned Books Week. We want to use this opportunity to draw attention to it. Here are some resources we’ve gathered so you can learn more about book bans and censorship in prisons throughout the US, and a few information access projects you can support to help keep reading possible for those incarcerated in your communities. Everyone deserves the freedom to read!

# data[].attributes.subject
The books banned for incarcerated readers often parallel those being banned in schools and libraries - books by Black authors, books on the history of racism and fights against oppression, and books that tell queer and trans stories. And yet, book bans and censorship in prisons often get left out of the conversation during Banned Books Week. We want to use this opportunity to draw attention to it. Here are some resources we’ve gathered so you can learn more about book bans and censorship in prisons throughout the US, and a few information access projects you can support to help keep reading possible for those incarcerated in your communities. Everyone deserves the freedom to read!

# data[].attributes.headline
Read this thread to learn more about Banned Books Week, prison as censorship, and what you can do to help!

# data[].attributes.subject
Read this thread to learn more about Banned Books Week, prison as censorship, and what you can do to help!

# data[].attributes.wish_content.attachment_props.text
Banned Books Week is here, an annual awareness campaign regarding censorship and the freedom to read. This year, a group of librarians, incarcerated and formerly-incarcerated people, publishers, and books-to-prisoners programs have partnered to say that the #prisoniscensorship🧵

# data[].attributes.wish_content.attachment_props.original_text
Banned Books Week is here, an annual awareness campaign regarding censorship and the freedom to read. This year, a group of librarians, incarcerated and formerly-incarcerated people, publishers, and books-to-prisoners programs have partnered to say that the #prisoniscensorship🧵

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.embed_code
Banned Books Week is here, an annual awareness campaign regarding censorship and the freedom to read. This year, a group of librarians, incarcerated and formerly-incarcerated people, publishers, and books-to-prisoners programs have partnered to say that the #prisoniscensorship🧵
— Garrett Felber (@garrett_felber) September 19, 2022

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.metadata.attachment_props_source.data.text
Banned Books Week is here, an annual awareness campaign regarding censorship and the freedom to read. This year, a group of librarians, incarcerated and formerly-incarcerated people, publishers, and books-to-prisoners programs have partnered to say that the #prisoniscensorship🧵

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.metadata.attachment_props.original_text
Banned Books Week is here, an annual awareness campaign regarding censorship and the freedom to read. This year, a group of librarians, incarcerated and formerly-incarcerated people, publishers, and books-to-prisoners programs have partnered to say that the #prisoniscensorship🧵

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.metadata.attachment_props.text
Banned Books Week is here, an annual awareness campaign regarding censorship and the freedom to read. This year, a group of librarians, incarcerated and formerly-incarcerated people, publishers, and books-to-prisoners programs have partnered to say that the #prisoniscensorship🧵

# data[].attributes.headline
The Cruel Practice of Banning Books Behind Bars

# data[].attributes.subject
The Cruel Practice of Banning Books Behind Bars

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
In Florida, the list of 20,000-plus banned books includes Nutrition For Dummies and PCs For Dummies. In New Hampshire, the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel Blood in the Water: The Attica Prison Uprising of 1971 and Its Legacy makes the list. Texas, which bans nearly 9,000 books, once counted a collection of Shakespeare's plays and sonnets among them. In New York, one prison attempted to ban a book of maps of the moon because it could "present risks of escape."

The examples here serve to demonstrate the expansive, arbitrary, and absurd ways in which prisons make materials inaccessible to people behind bars. Across the United States, agencies have issued an ever-evolving list of restrictions on what people in prison can read. Works by Black authors, civil rights literature, critiques of mass incarceration, books in languages other than English-all are frequently censored. (Meanwhile, Adolf Hitler's Mein Kampf and books by David Duke have been allowed in some of those same prisons.)

Restrictions aren't limited to book titles. Maps, survival guides, and even specific magazine issues (of Reader's Digest and Rolling Stone, among others) are prohibited. Restrictions vary from state to state, facility to facility. Ultimately, such policies underscore how corrections agencies and staff limit incarcerated people's access to the written word-and, by extension, their access to information. And they succeed in doing so without much public awareness or oversight.

"Anything to educate or empower [is] screened by the mailroom," and most often banned, Cynthia Simons, the coordinator of the Texas Women's Justice Coalition, told the magazine Scalawag.

Prisons treat books as " restricted commodities" that pose threats within prison walls. But for people who are incarcerated, books allow them to establish a connection to the outside world, connections that increase their chances of success after release. Books create opportunities, enabling people to leave prison with knowledge they didn't have before. Seemingly, that's not what corrections agencies want.

"Approved vendors" only

Facilities don't just try to control what people in prison read. In recent years, some states have outlined who can send books to people in prison-and who can't. Several states prevent family and friends from mailing books directly to incarcerated people, requiring that they come from bookstores or publishers. Last April, the Iowa Department of Corrections extended this ban to third parties, barring bookstores and nonprofits from sending books to people behind bars. Now, people incarcerated in Iowa must buy the books themselves from a list of approved vendors, and used books are prohibited altogether.

At least four federal prisons have enacted similar policies, according to Julia Mascioli, deputy director at Free Minds Book Club & Writing Workshop. The nonprofit primarily works with people from Washington, DC, who are held in Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) facilities across the country, sending them books, writing resources, and other materials.

But the books Free Minds sent to its members started coming back from Federal Correctional Institution (FCI), Beckley in West Virginia in April 2020, and from FCI Schuylkill in Pennsylvania that August. FCI Manchester in Kentucky began rejecting books around February 2021, and United States Penitentiary, McCreary, also in Kentucky, followed suit last month. Mascioli said all have adopted bans like Iowa's, requiring that incarcerated people purchase books themselves from a few approved publishers who offer a limited catalog at prices higher than those of other booksellers.

The bans, including Iowa's, are based on an unsubstantiated narrative that books may contain contraband (which is also the explanation given for recent bans on mail). Mascioli said some BOP facilities briefly implemented similar restrictions in 2017, only to walk them back when the Washington Post pressed for further information. She fears that this renewed trickle signals that more facilities will adopt similar policies as time goes on.

"How much of the actual contraband coming in do books account for?" Mascioli said. "When we call and ask about these policies, that's what [corrections officers] say. But I haven't seen anything from the Bureau of Prisons backing this up."

Andy Chan, president of Seattle-based nonprofit Books to Prisoners' board, said he frequently sees books rejected because they contain " racial" content or content that is detrimental to the " good order " of the prison. He added that Books to Prisoners encounters new restrictions "all the time," and recent moves to restrict books by prison authorities have been more "subtle."

"Things pop up, and we haven't heard anything about them," Chan said. Books to Prisoners is run in large part by volunteers. "There's no way [we] can proactively keep on top of this stuff."

Fighting the bans on books

Books to Prisoners has first-hand experience fighting book-banning policies. When the Washington State Department of Corrections (DOC) pushed out a ban on used books, in March 2019, it did so quietly. Books to Prisoners staff only realized when they started receiving rejection notices from prisons. Some digging uncovered a memo, posted on the DOC's website, that cited a rise in contraband as the reason for the rule change.

"They don't advertise these kinds of things," Chan said.

Books to Prisoners mobilized swiftly-and fought the ban successfully. It marshalled support from across the country, tapping into the informal network of organizations that donate books to incarcerated people. It took to social media and brought the policy change to the attention of local press, which led The Seattle Times to request further information from the DOC.

While advocates and the public flooded the DOC with emails and phone calls, The Seattle Times's information request revealed that none of the 17 instances the agency originally cited to back the ban had anything to do with contraband entering prisons inside books. And about a month after the DOC first issued the ban, it was reversed.

No transparency

It's seldom the case that states or facilities make lists of their banned books publicly available. State departments of corrections create policies that prison officials have wide-ranging discretion to interpret and enforce. Chan said it often seems like the sole decision-making power rests with the mailroom staffer who receives the package. He added that, in the network of nonprofits that send books to people in prison, it's known that prisons may accept books that were previously rejected, and vice versa. Some states have even said they make decisions on a case-by-case basis and don't track rejections or subsequent appeals.

PEN America's 2019 survey of prison censorship similarly found that there's little oversight or public visibility on how prison authorities censor content. Nonprofit organizations that send books to people in prison struggle to keep up with opaque restrictions. The Tennessee Prison Books Project wrote last fall that many of the books it has sent out have been returned, supposedly for "safety" reasons. In January 2022, a rejection notice Books to Prisoners received from a Tennessee prison for a Scholastic biography of Malcolm X simply read " Malcolm X not allowed." Chan said the organization receives a handful of them every week. It's impossible to say how many books never make it to their intended recipients because such notices aren't standard.

This lack of transparency means that U.S. prisons' book-banning practices could be far more extensive than we know. But there have been wins, as advocates-including volunteer-led organizations and people who have been incarcerated-have helped successfully fight bans on books by intensifying public pressure, pursuing lawsuits, and gaining the support of governors and other state officials.

"There's no cookie-cutter approach to responding to these things," Chan said.

The ongoing, insidious assault on access to books must end. Prison officials must scrap irrational, inconsistent restrictions and develop clear, explicit policies, grounded in evidence, in their place. At the heart of this is the fight for access to information and ideas, and freedom of thought. Those aren't just rights that exist beyond prison walls-they must also prevail within them.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
The Cruel Practice of Banning Books Behind Bars

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
In Florida , the list of 20,000-plus banned books includes Nutrition For Dummies and PCs For Dummies . In New Hampshire , the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel Blood in the Water: The Attica Prison Uprising of 1971 and Its Legacy makes the list. Texas , which bans nearly 9,000 books , once counted a...

# data[].attributes.headline
PEN America's series of essays on prison censorship for Banned Books Week 2022

# data[].attributes.subject
PEN America's series of essays on prison censorship for Banned Books Week 2022

# data[].attributes.body
Read on to hear first-hand from incarcerated readers about the impact of book bans and how much reading means to those inside.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
@CathyYoung63 reports from PEN America's #WordsOnFire symposium featuring @ayadakhtar @MargaretAtwood @ChimamandaReal Dave Eggers @JennyBoylan & @SuzanneNossel, calling it "probably the best event I have seen so far on the culture wars around free speech" https://www.thebulwark.com/the-power-of-words-and-the-need-to-protect-free-speech/

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Censorship behind bars: How prison book restrictions make up the nation’s largest book ban

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
In The New Jim Crow, civil rights lawyer Michelle Alexander examines the ways in which today’s mass incarceration is a continuation of America’s history

# data[].attributes.headline
“[Prisons] treat books as restricted commodities, a privilege—not a right—less essential than the right to bear arms, but in the eyes of the state, somehow just as dangerous.”

# data[].attributes.subject
“[Prisons] treat books as restricted commodities, a privilege—not a right—less essential than the right to bear arms, but in the eyes of the state, somehow just as dangerous.”

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Return to sender: Contraband books in Texas prisons

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
How the right to read is being restricted behind bars.

# data[].attributes.headline
PEN America's "Literature Locked Up: How Prison Book Restriction Policies Constitute the Nation's Largest Book Ban"

# data[].attributes.subject
PEN America's "Literature Locked Up: How Prison Book Restriction Policies Constitute the Nation's Largest Book Ban"

# data[].attributes.headline
A formerly incarcerated writer shares what books in prison meant to them:

# data[].attributes.subject
A formerly incarcerated writer shares what books in prison meant to them:

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Credit... Ben Denzer

Send any friend a story
As a subscriber, you have 10 gift articles to give each month. Anyone can read what you share.

Mr. Blackwell is an incarcerated writer.

SHELTON, Wash. - During my first decade in prison, I busied myself with exercising and hanging out in the big yard. I hardly grew as a person, aside from developing muscles that I really used only to intimidate others.

I stopped going to school at around 14. After multiple stints in juvenile detention, I was too far behind all my classmates to catch up. By my mid-20s, I was sentenced to a total of 45 years in prison, first for a robbery and then for taking the life of another person during a drug robbery. Every day I regret what I did. It wasn't until I began college in prison in my 30s that I started to realize my full potential.

In my classes, I met people who were intelligent, spoke with confidence and understood structural forces I had almost no knowledge of, despite the huge role they played in my life. I realized I didn't want to feel like the most ignorant person in the room. I, too, wanted to participate in an intellectual conversation and have people think I was smart and well spoken.

Shyly, I asked a classmate and fellow prisoner in my class if he'd be willing to help me. He jumped at the task. Before I knew it, I was absorbed in David Foster Wallace and Michel Foucault and using concepts and terms in conversations that were previously far over my head.

Through my journey in college, I became an avid reader and writer, striving to escape prison life by expanding my mind beyond the toxic environments I'd been confined to. I started studying feminism and restorative justice. One concept that really hit home for me was toxic masculinity. I come from an abusive home and a neighborhood consumed by gangs, drugs and gun violence. I wanted to understand better why I had used violence to solve my problems.

I have found, however, that strangers stand between me and many of the books I want to read.

Books, like everything an incarcerated person receives - personal mail, emails, photos, news and education materials - are evaluated by prison officials and rejected or shared with us. Corrections departments typically claim they ban books that contain sexual content, racial animus or depictions of violence, criminal activity, anti-authority attitudes or escape. In practice, PEN America wrote in a 2019 report on prison book restriction policies, the restrictions "have been wide-ranging, from perverse to absurd to constitutionally troubling, with bans being applied in ways that defy logic."

In Texas, books by Alice Walker, Pablo Neruda and even the former senator Bob Dole have been banned. Throughout the country, prison officials have rejected or tried to ban books about biology (too much nudity in the anatomical drawings), the Holocaust (some of the victims were pictured nude), sketching, dragons and even the moon ( it could "present risks of escape," according to one New York prison). At one point, Colorado prison officials blocked a prisoner from reading two of President Barack Obama's memoirs because they were "potentially detrimental to national security," although they later reversed that decision.

Claiming such bans are necessary for the safety and security of prisons seems ludicrous. If anything, many banned books could contribute to a safer environment in prisons and in the societies incarcerated individuals are released into. Practically every author I have encountered while in prison, from Don Miguel Ruiz to Angela Y. Davis, has played a role in my efforts to grow and become a better person - someone who can live in society by adding to it, as opposed to taking from it.

While working to understand my harmful ways, I corresponded with Michael Kimmel, the author of "Angry White Men: American Masculinity at the End of an Era." When he sent a copy of his book to me, it was rejected for what the prison claimed were "penological objectives."

"The content could reasonably be thought to lead or add to tensions between groups specifically in a prison setting," the prison explained in the rejection notice I was sent.

Successfully challenging book rejections often requires navigating a forbidding bureaucratic maze. But I appealed. I explained that the book is about toxic masculinity and shows men how to be functioning adults without the need for violence and anger - the opposite of what the prison claimed could be the outcome of reading the book.

Four months later, the rejection was overturned, and the book was released. For me, this small win was huge. Reading Dr. Kimmel's book helped me to understand some of the deeply rooted structures around masculinity. I learned about how entitlement could lead men to hit women they claimed to love because they felt disrespected - something that happened in my family. He helped me to see my own toxic masculinity and to prevent it from consuming me and harming others.

I wish my fellow prisoners across the country could easily have access to books like Dr. Kimmel's that show how to solve problems without violence. But my successful appeal didn't automatically make the book available for others. Mailroom staff members can still reject the same book for the next prisoner who wants to read it. And many prisoners don't have the time or the skill to file an appeal, or they are afraid of retaliation. Denied the chance to learn and grow through reading, incarcerated people are released with fewer skills and less knowledge.

State and federal prisons should not be allowed to censor the reading and educational materials of adult prisoners unless they can point to a legitimate safety threat; I'm not expecting them to allow us to read "The Anarchist Cookbook," for example.

Prisons across the country will continue arbitrarily rejecting books like "Angry White Men" until state and federal officials create more explicit book restriction policies that clearly define what constitutes a safety threat. Prison officials should also be required to carefully consider the rehabilitative and educational potential of each book. The process for appealing a book rejection should be easier, and successful appeals should make formerly banned books easily accessible to all prisoners who want to read them.

Without college and without access to books and materials that expanded my mind beyond the razor wire and towering concrete walls, I might still be wasting my time on the yard. My worldview would still be dictated by toxic masculinity and the violence and harm that surround it. That's not who I want to be when I leave this prison. It's not who I want to see sent back into society.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Opinion | Reading While Incarcerated Saved Me. So Why Are Prisons Banning Books?

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Send any friend a story As a subscriber, you have 10 gift articles to give each month. Anyone can read what you share. Mr. Blackwell is an incarcerated writer. SHELTON, Wash. - During my first decade in prison, I busied myself with exercising and hanging out in the big yard.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
While the American Library Association hosts discussions and programming around banned books in public institutions and libraries, the topic of prison book access is lacking. They do have resources and guides to donating books (including to prisons), but the advocacy side for those incarcerated is mostly left up to organizations that do this year-round. This is probably because, as a nation, people aren't ready to confront their own bias against those incarcerated (even for non-violent offenses), and advocates get labeled "radicals" or "hippies."

Some books frequently banned from prisons are works by Frederick Douglass, Alice Walker, Shakespeare, Stephen King, George Orwell, Anne Rice, James Patterson, many holy books that are not the Christian Bible, and thousands more.

Common reasons are sexually explicit imagery/text (it doesn't matter the context), the book helping hide/plan criminal schemes, encouraging deviant sexual behavior (???), information on drugs, information on weapons/weapon-making, or having contraband in it. Instead of going down how almost each one of those is used to exploit and dehumanize incarcerated people, let's talk about the most nefarious of all general rules.

One reason the Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ) bans books is if:

It contains materials that a reasonable person would construe as written solely for the purpose of communicating information designed to achieve the breakdown of prisons through offender disruption such as strikes, riots, or security threat group activity.

While this is the language used for TDCJ, many other prison systems across the country (including territories and military bases) have a similarly worded clause in guidelines. This vague language allows them to ban books about civil rights, race/racism (as well as other isms), social studies, or really anything. Because prisons can be private, state (over 50%), country/local, or federally-run, these rules and restrictions vary in severity and application between systems. Needless to say, but the type of incarceration (general populations vs. solitary confinement) also affects book access.

When a journalist from The Marshall Project asked for an updated book ban list from the TDCJ, they were asked to pay $400 for a spreadsheet listing the titles.

I asked the Texas prison system for an updated list of banned books and they have so many banned books that they want to charge me $400 for a spreadsheet listing them.

This is astonishing in part because it is a list that already exists. pic.twitter.com/Ys0r2snKFt

- Keri Blakinger (@keribla) October 27, 2020

Books can be sent back or rejected for misspellings, where the book was mailed from, notes inside, letters attached, if it is hardback, and many other reasons. All of these reasons (like the type of books rejected) are under the guise of "protection."

I know this phrase gets old, but the pandemic made this worse for many incarcerated people. On top of overcrowding, lack of masks/sanitizer, medical experimentation (giving inmates ivermectin, saying they were vitamins), and more, they are on lockdown mode for the most part. Prison lockdowns mean no access to libraries, classes, or any social spaces (visitation, etc.).
What can you do to help?
There are tons of organizations that help incarcerated folks access books year-round and bring attention to the biased nature of prisons' banned books to the press. Many of these organizations need volunteers, but all of them need money and books. Some also look for writers to become pen pals.

Another indirect way to aid is to educate yourself about the nature of the prison system and about prison abolition. These are titles such as The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness by Michelle Alexzander, The End of Policing by Alex Vitale, and Are Prisons Obsolete? by Angela Davis. These books are banned in many prisons because the state fears educating the public, and for that terrible reason from TDCJ mentioned earlier.

The way prisons exist (purposely) acts to strip all humanity and dignity out of people-those people being disproportionally poor, Black/brown, and disabled (mentally, physically, etc.). So, books can increase literacy, lower recidivism, improve critical thinking skills, provide answers as to the systems designed to put them there (and keep them there), or just relieve the pain of incarceration through escapism-and their access is weaponized against them, all on our dime and in the name of our safety.

(image: Alyssa Shotwell)
Want more stories like this? Become a subscriber and support the site! -The Mary Sue has a strict comment policy that forbids, but is not limited to, personal insults toward anyone, hate speech, and trolling.- Have a tip we should know? [email protected]

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Prison Censorship Should Be a Bigger Discussion in Banned Book Week

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
While the American Library Association hosts discussions and programming around banned books in public institutions and libraries, the topic of prison book access is lacking. They do have resources and guides to donating books (including to prisons), but the advocacy side for those incarcerated is mostly left up to organizations that do this year-round.

# data[].attributes.headline
Find a books through bars that serves your the incarcerated community in your home state!

# data[].attributes.subject
Find a books through bars that serves your the incarcerated community in your home state!

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Pages and Time, Los Angeles, CA
Serves: Libraries at Wasco/Delano State Prisons and Chino Women's Prison

Prison Library Project, Claremont, CA
Serves: All US states EXCEPT MA

Prisoners Literature Project, San Francisco, CA
Serves: All US states EXCEPT TX

UC Davis Books to Prisoners, Sacramento, CA
Serves: contact organization

Pages for Prisons, Boulder, CO
Serves: Colorado prison libraries only
Connecticut
Connecticut Prison Book Connection, Rocky Hill, CT
Serves all states
District of Columbia
Serves: federal prisoners in Arizona. DC residents in federal prisons. All other states DC Books to Prisons Project, Washington, DC
EXCEPT CT, FL, IL, MA, ME, MI, NH, NJ, NY, OR, PA, RI, VT, WA, or WI.
Florida Georgia Illinois
Liberation Library HQ in Chicago. Serves youth in all Illinois youth prisons and select Illinois youth jails.
Indiana Kentucky Louisiana Massachusetts Michigan Minnesota Mississippi Missouri
Missouri Prison Books Program, St. Louis, MO
Serves: MO
Nebraska New Jersey
Books Beyond Bars, New York, NY
Serves: NY only

NYC Books Through Bars, New York, NY
Serves: All US states EXCEPT AL, FL, LA, MA, MI, MS, NC, OH, and PA with a priority on NY.
North Carolina
Asheville, NC Asheville Prison Books Program,
Serves: NC, SC

Saxapahaw Prison Books, Saxapahaw, NC
Serves: prisoners in GA and NC
Ohio
Serves: Ohio, Kentucky, West Virginia, and Indiana
Oklahoma
OK Prison Books Collective, Tulsa, OK
Oregon Pennsylvania Rhode Island Tennessee Texas Virginia
Books Behind Bars, Charlottesville, VA
Serves: VA only
Washington
Serves: Contact organization. Olympia Books to Prisoners, Olympia, WA

Books to Prisoners Spokane, Spokane, WA
Serves: Contact organization.
West Virginia
Appalachian Prison Book Project, Morgantown, WV
Serves: KY, MD, OH, TN, VA, WV
Wisconsin

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Pages and Time , Los Angeles, CAServes: Libraries at Wasco/Delano State Prisons and Chino Women's Prison Prison Library Project, Claremont, CAServes: All US states EXCEPT MA Prisoners Literature Project, San Francisco, CAServes: All US states EXCEPT TX UC Davis Books to Prisoners, Sacramento, CAServes: contact organization Pages for Prisons, Boulder, CO Serves: Colorado prison libraries only Connecticut Connecticut Prison Book Connection , Rocky Hill, CTServes all states District of Columbia Serves: federal prisoners in Arizona.

# data[].attributes.headline
Buy a book from Haymarket this week and support readers inside!

# data[].attributes.subject
Buy a book from Haymarket this week and support readers inside!

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
HaymarketBooks.org

Books Are For Everyone: A Banned Books Week Reading List

Banned Books Week-September 18th to 24th-is an annual celebration of the freedom to read, and the aspiration that books should be accessible to all. For Banned Books Week 2022, Haymarket is highlighting the unjust censorshop of political books which impacts countless incarcerated readers each year.

We've put together a Books Are For Everyone reading list: ten books that reflect the spectrum of urgent writing often targeted for censorship by prisons across the country.
As part of our Books Not Bars program, this Banned Books week Haymarket will donate one book to someone who is incarcerated for every book purchased from this reading list.
Books are for everyone! Abolish prisons!

A reflection on prison industrial complex abolition and a vision for collective liberation from organizer and educator Mariame Kaba.

"This is one of the best books on writing that I've ever read. I couldn't put it down."
-Michelle Alexander, author of The New Jim Crow

A revolutionary collaboration about the world we're living in now, between two of our most important contemporary thinkers, writers and activists.

A celebration of freedom work, a movement genealogy, a call to action, and a challenge to those who think of abolition and feminism as separate-even incompatible-political projects.

This timely and urgent book shows how a youth-led political movement has emerged in recent years to challenge the bipartisan consensus on punishment and looks to the future through a redistributive, queer, and feminist lens.

Violent Order explores the everyday practices of police and policing as modes of violence in the fabrication of social order.

An urgent and accessible analysis of the key structures of state violence in our world today, and a clarion call to action for their abolition.

In the midst of loss and death and suffering, our charge is to figure out what freedom really means-and how we take steps to get there.

This updated and expanded edition of Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor 's groundbreaking book features a new chapter and a foreword by Angela Y. Davis.

A lively, accessible, and timely guide to Capitalism for those who want to understand and dismantle the world of the 1%.

Haymarket's Books Not Bars program connects people who are incarcerated with radical books and opportunities for political education. Find out more about our Books Not Bars program, make a donation, and/or request books for loved ones inside here.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Books Are For Everyone: A Banned Books Week Reading List

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Banned Books Week-September 18th to 24th-is an annual celebration of the freedom to read, and the aspiration that books should be accessible to all. For Banned Books Week 2022, Haymarket is highlighting the unjust censorshop of political books which impacts countless incarcerated readers each year.

# data[].attributes.headline
Prison Library Support Network - Open Collective 

# data[].attributes.subject
Prison Library Support Network - Open Collective 

# data[].attributes.body
Support a project offering reference by mail to meet the info access needs of incarcerated people throughout the US!

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Controlling and restricting information access is a powerful form of violence used by the prison industrial complex. In response, PLSN created a structure for volunteers to remotely answer questions mailed to us by people in facilities around the country with care and expertise. Since the launch of our fully volunteer-powered service in October 2021 we have responded to over 900 questions from incarcerated people.

Stamps, envelopes, and printing are the biggest expenses for the reference project with costs being covered by volunteers and one-off stamp drives. Recognizing that this model would not be sustainable for the growing number of letters received, PLSN has partnered with the Open Collective Foundation (OCF) to create a space where people can donate on a one-time or reoccurring basis. Your contributions will go directly to buying the supplies we need to respond to the over 200 letters we get every month from incarcerated folks.

Want to learn more about the Reference Project? Reach out to us for more info by emailing [email protected] and visit our in-progress Reference Project site for more info.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Prison Library Support Network - Open Collective

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Controlling and restricting information access is a powerful form of violence used by the prison industrial complex. In response, PLSN created a structure for volunteers to remotely answer questions mailed to us by people in facilities around the country with care and expertise.

# data[].attributes.headline
A panel discussion on how librarians, community-based groups and people who are incarcerated navigate the many kinds of censorship that take place inside of jails and prisons across the U.S.   

# data[].attributes.subject
A panel discussion on how librarians, community-based groups and people who are incarcerated navigate the many kinds of censorship that take place inside of jails and prisons across the U.S.   

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Panel: Censorship in Prisons, A Banned Books Week Event

# data[].attributes.headline
"Free" doesn't always mean free - Mother Jones on the cost of e-readers in prison

# data[].attributes.subject
"Free" doesn't always mean free - Mother Jones on the cost of e-readers in prison

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
“Free” tablets are costing prison inmates a fortune

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Would you send that email if it cost 30 cents? These prisoners don’t have another choice.

# data[].attributes.headline
Learn about Delaware's e-reader tablet contract: 

# data[].attributes.subject
Learn about Delaware's e-reader tablet contract: 

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Tablet computers are delivering a captive audience to profit-seeking companies, while enabling prisons to cut essential services like law libraries. We investigate.

by Mack Finkel and Wanda Bertram, March 7, 2019

This article was updated on May 28, 2021 with details about California's prison tablet contract.

Twelve states have recently signed contracts with prison telecom companies to provide tablet computers to incarcerated people - a sharp increase since we began analyzing these contracts in 2017. Though many prisons already allow incarcerated people to buy tablets, these contracts provide something different: Tablets for free, ostensibly at no cost to either consumers or taxpayers. (To be clear, these aren't like the iPads you can buy at a store; they're cheaply made, with no internet access.)

But as with most state contracts that appear to cost nothing, there is a catch - several, in fact.

First, the "free" tablets charge users at every opportunity, including above-market prices for phone calls, video chats and media. Even sending an email requires a paid "stamp." Furthermore, our recent analysis of these contracts suggests that they actually put the interests of incarcerated people last, prioritizing cost savings and the provider's bottom line.

For instance, many of these contracts:

Guarantee the Department of Corrections a portion of tablet revenue.

Allow tablet providers to alter the prices of services - such as email, music and money transfer - without state approval.

Allow providers to terminate tablet services if the tablets aren't profitable enough.

Exempt providers from replacing a broken tablet if they think it was "willfully" damaged - a loophole ripe for exploitation, as prison tablets are cheaply made and break easily.

More details below:

Contract

Active since

Does the DOC receive a portion of tablet revenue?

Can the provider cancel the service for reasons related to profitability?

Are the terms of use subject to DOC approval?

Will the provider replace broken tablets?

Example of service charges on tablets

Indiana DOC and GTL
July 2018

Yes, DOC earns a 10% commission on purchased content (not including phone or video calls made on tablets).

Yes. GTL can cancel service in housing units where 10 or 10% of tablets are damaged in a year.

Yes, DOC must approve the Terms and Conditions.

GTL has discretion to determine whether damage was "willful," and does not have to replace willfully damaged tablets.
GTL does not have to replace tablets more than once for any given incarcerated person, nor does it have to replace more than 5 or 5% of tablets in a housing unit every year.

A 30-day subscription to "unlimited podcasts" costs $9.99.

Providers and DOC officials often describe free tablets as a gift to incarcerated people, but they more closely resemble a corporate investment than a gift. For the companies, free tablets with expensive services more than pay for themselves down the line. And for prison administrators, tablets pave the way for the elimination of essential services. We've already seen prisons eliminate:

Law libraries. South Dakota eliminated its paralegals and physical law library after rolling out tablets. A subsequent lawsuit alleged that the tablet software meant to replace the law library is often unusable, and deprives incarcerated people of meaningful access to the courts.

Physical books. Last year, Pennsylvania ended book donations to incarcerated people in favor of costly e-books, many of which were lifted directly from the free online library at Project Gutenberg. New York and Maryland also tried to end book donations (before public pressure forced them to backtrack), and one large Florida jail even took away Bibles, replacing them with low-quality e-Bibles on tablets.

Postal mail, which prisons can eliminate in favor of digital mail scans (as Pennsylvania did) and paid electronic messaging.

All this being said, there is nothing inherently wrong with tablet technology, in or out of a prison setting. It's certainly possible to imagine using tablet technology to substantially improve prison life. But before states can write better contracts, they - and the public - must learn to distinguish truly innovative policies from high-tech ploys to cut costs.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
More states are signing harmful "free prison tablet" contracts

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
by Mack Finkel and Wanda Bertram, March 7, 2019 This article was updated on May 28, 2021 with details about California's prison tablet contract. Twelve states have recently signed contracts with prison telecom companies to provide tablet computers to incarcerated people - a sharp increase since we began analyzing these contracts in 2017.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
"War is Peace; Freedom is Slavery; Ignorance is Strength."

So goes the official slogan of George Orwell's Oceania, a hyper-surveillance-based police state underpinned by the illogic of doublethink. Defined in 1984 as "the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one's mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them," doublethink camouflages exploitation as generosity and violence as social order. The novel highlights the role of language manipulation in the maintenance of state power and the compliance of its citizenry.

The Hidden Costs of "Free" Prison Tablets

Aside from visiting a public library, any nonincarcerated American citizen with Internet access can unlock the secrets of Oceania for free by downloading 1984 from Project Gutenberg Australia. For those who prefer handwritten notes in margins, a used paperback is available online for less than a dollar. Or you can buy it new for $7.54.

As a result of a new contract between Global Tel Link (GTL) and the West Virginia Division of Corrections and Rehabilitation (WVDCR), you might think people incarcerated in West Virginia prisons could use the "free" GTL tablets to download a "free" copy of 1984 and journey from "It was a bright cold day in April" to "He loved Big Brother."

But people in WV prisons will be charged 5 cents/minute to access much of the tablet's content. For now, a promotional discount brings the cost of reading e-books down to 3 cents/minute. Either way, it's no way to read.

The books on the tablet come entirely from Project Gutenberg's free online library. Most of the books we receive requests for at APBP -how-to guides (carpentry, starting a business, repairing small engines, etc.), contemporary fiction, popular mysteries and sci-fi, African American literature, Native studies, recent autobiographies-will not be available.

Since Project Gutenberg archives older texts that have entered the public domain, they do not allow institutions to charge people to download their e-books and audio books. The per-minute tablet usage fees provide a clever way for GTL to profit from people reading "free" books.

Although it looks like the use of their free archives may not violate their trademark, the Chief Executive and Director of Project Gutenberg, Dr. Gregory Newby, finds it "very sad." In an email to APBP, he wrote that he would be "very pleased if [we] can convince GTL to change their practices."

A Familiar and Disturbing Trend: Profit Over People

The per-minute charge will bring in far more profit than an e-book vendor who charges a set price for downloads, as the cost to read a book far exceeds the cost to purchase one. And that cost will be especially unfair to new readers and people with dyslexia.

The paperback version of 1984 is about 330 pages. It will take a person who is able to read 30 pages per hour about 11 hours to read the novel. At the discounted $0.03/minute usage fee, 11 hours of reading a free book will cost a person about $19.80-and this is if you don't stop to think or re-read.

In New York, JPay provided "free" tablets to people in prison and anticipates making about $16 million by 2021.

For those familiar with how private industries profit from mass imprisonment, the words "free" and "access" start to look at lot like doublethink for "cost-prohibitive" and "further isolation."

Of course, people in prison are often excited to have access to tablets-and with good reason. Tablets can be part of quality educational programming and improved communication with family and friends. But the dystopian agreement between GTL and WVDCR prioritizes private profit over the public good.

GTL Tablets in WV Prisons

The 2019 contract, signed February 25 after a five-month pilot program at St. Mary's Correctional Center, expanded the tablet program to ten prisons in WV:

Anthony Correctional Center

Salem Correctional Center and Jail

Denmar Correctional Center and Jail

Prunytown Correctional Center and Jail

Huttonsville Correctional Center and Jail (including Work Camp)

Northern Correctional Facility

Ohio County Correctional Center and Jail

Mount Olive Correctional Complex and Jail (including Salem Work Camp)

Martinsburg Correctional Center and Jail

Lakin Correctional Center and Jail

Marketing for GTL tablets paints a picture of a benevolent collaboration between two parties working in the best interests of both the public and the incarcerated. GTL tablets are "provided" to incarcerated people free of charge and "at no cost to the taxpayers." Tablets are "designed for correctional settings" and include sophisticated security features while offering a range of "free apps" as well as the ability to purchase additional apps.

A press release highlights the wide range of features that offer unprecedented access to the world beyond bars-educational materials, pathways to electronically file grievances, email, video chat, messaging services, audiobooks, music, games, and e-books.

Here's the breakdown of costs:

Accessing content, which includes "music, games, electronic messaging, eBooks," costs $0.05 per minute.

Video visitation features cost $0.25 per minute.

Instant messaging costs $0.25 per written message and is billed to the friend or family member on the outside.

Sending a photo with a message costs an additional $.50, and video attachments cost an additional $1.00 each.

These rates could represent minimum charges, as GTL "may in its discretion change any pricing. Taxes, and regulatory and other mandated fees, may also apply." The company reserves the right to terminate the contract if expenditures have not been recouped in 12 months.

Financial Issues on the Inside and Outside

A family member of a person incarcerated in WV explained to APBP, "Tablets allow us to communicate with our loved ones, but families may face financial issues. It's very expensive. It's easy to use $10 or more in a day if you text through the app like you would text on a phone."

According to research by the Prison Policy Initiative, wages for regular jobs in WV prisons range between $0.04 and $0.58 per hour. Taking the average ($0.30 per hour), a person must work for 66 hours to earn enough to read a book like 1984.

To further ensure profits, the contract specifies that at least 80% of people in any given prison must have access to the paid content and that the prison must designate a point person, provide space to store the tablets, distribute tablets and headsets, allow for the sale of accessories (earbuds, headsets, etc.) at commissary, report malfunctions and damage, and facilitate use of the product.

Imagine if higher education programs in prison had this kind of access and assistance.

Why Prisons and Jails Want Tablets

So, why is the WVDCR willing to sign off on this type of predatory contract?

For one, WVDCR will receive a 5% commission on gross revenue, including fees from video visitation. This kind of commission has, in other states, led to efforts to restrict books, in-person visits, and educational opportunities even further.

Also, like several states, WVDCR is suspicious of print books and letters as a possible route for drugs. Prison book projects are united in our certainty that the answer to contraband is not to cut millions of people off from critical resources and human connections. The answer is, instead, to address addiction and provide meaningful programming. As John J. Lennon, who spent 18 years in prison, explained in a 2018 article in The Guardian: "Restrictive policies didn't deter me from smuggling drugs and doing drugs. Opportunity did."

A Final Turn

As it turns out, only Project Gutenberg Australia has 1984 in its archives. It is unlikely that incarcerated tablet users in WV will be able to access the novel at all.

Irony doesn't begin to do justice to this situation or to the increasing attacks across the country on the right to learn and to read inside prison. It is vicious. And we have to turn it around.

How You Can Help

Contact WVDRC Commissioner Betsy Jividen (304.558.2036) and WV Governor Jim Justice (304.558.2000) and share your concerns. To get you started, we've written a sample script:
Hi. My name is ________. I'm calling because I learned that the West Virginia Division of Corrections and Rehabilitation entered into a new tablet contract with Global Tel Link that forces incarcerated people to pay $0.03-0.05 per minute to read books. People in prison cannot afford to read at these costs. I am asking that you change the contract with Global Tel Link and end these fees. Please encourage reading in prison!"
It's also important to stay informed. Here are a couple of resources if you're interested in learning more:

Dr. Rebecca Ginsburg (Education Justice Project), Dr. Katy Ryan (APBP), Jodi Lincoln (Book 'Em), and Michelle Dillon (Human Rights Defense Center and Books to Prisoners), "High Tech, Low Accountability: How Do We Fight Back Against Prison Tablets and Prison Censorship?," 2019 National Conference of Higher Education in Prison

Michael Walters, "The Outrageous Scam of "Free" Tablets for the Incarcerated," The Outline

Tonya Riley, "'Free' Tablets Are Costing Prison Inmates a Fortune," Mother Jones

Together, we can fight this predatory contract.

Support the Appalachian Prison Book Project

At APBP, we rely on donations and volunteers to provide books and educational opportunities to people on the inside. Get involved today to help us continue challenging mass incarceration.

Note: An earlier version of this post described the WVDCR's 5% commission as follows: "This kickback will give the state incentive to restrict print books, in-person visits, and educational opportunities even further." On December 13, 2019, we changed that text: "This kind of commission has, in other states, led to efforts to restrict books, in-person visits, and educational opportunities even further."

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
The Cost of "Free" Prison Tablets - Appalachian Prison Book Project

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
"War is Peace; Freedom is Slavery; Ignorance is Strength." So goes the official slogan of George Orwell's Oceania, a hyper-surveillance-based police state underpinned by the illogic of doublethink. Defined in 1984 as "the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one's mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them," doublethink camouflages exploitation as generosity and violence as social order.

# data[].attributes.headline
Pen America's Best Practices for E-reader Tablets in Carceral Institutions

# data[].attributes.subject
Pen America's Best Practices for E-reader Tablets in Carceral Institutions

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Produced by the Coalition for Carceral Access in Literature and Learning (C.A.L.L.)
The introduction of e-reader tablets to carceral institutions is a new and growing trend. When implemented in a way that prioritizes incarcerated people and their loved ones, e-reader access can expand incarcerated people's access to literature and educational materials. However, e-readers are today being introduced into prisons and jails across the country in ways that unfairly and counterproductively impact the rights and interests of incarcerated readers.

Namely:

E-readers are being introduced in ways that supplant rather than supplement access to physical books provided through direct delivery or prison libraries.

E-readers are often costly and should be offered free of charge to incarcerated individuals.

E-readers tablets frequently avoid disclosing fees for tablet features that increase costs for individual users.

E-reader content often comes with predatory pricing structures that exploit low-income families.

E-reader tablets offer a limited selection of reading materials that can be woefully insufficient for incarcerated readers' needs.

E-readers may allow carceral institutions to monitor and surveil incarcerated individuals. Prison practices around e-readers risk normalizing the treatment of access to literature as a privilege and not a right.

Recent statements from prison and jail officials underscore a troubling course of action, where the expansion of digital books is cited as justifying a reduction in access to physical books. For example, in September 2018, Pennsylvania prohibited the purchase of physical books and donations to incarcerated individuals. The Pennsylvania Department of Corrections cited a "transition to e-books" to help justify the decision, which impacted over 47,000 incarcerated Pennsylvanians.

As advocates for the literary and educational needs of incarcerated people, we are very concerned over how these trends may undermine their access to literature and educational materials. We believe that the introduction and use of e-readers in prisons will accelerate, becoming an increasingly common avenue of access to literature. The policies that carceral institutions and e-reader vendors put in place today may determine future access to literature for more than two million incarcerated people across the United States.

To this end, we propose the following set of "best practices" to guide e-reader vendors and carceral institutions, in order to ensure that e-readers best serve the literary, educational needs, and interests of incarcerated people and their families.

Definitions

" E-readers " - refers to digital tablets used to access e-books and other digital content or literature.

" Infrastructure " - refers to the technological infrastructure needed to maintain the proper functionality of e-readers including, but not limited to: charging stations, internet connectivity with sufficient bandwidth for downloading, sync devices to kiosks, upload/download content, and coordinating local area networks (LANs) wirelessly.

" Literature" and " Literary " - refers to written materials, including but not limited to: books, magazines, newsletters, academic journals, and other academic and legal documents.

" Digital Content " refers to literature, music, films, educational materials, applications, and other content for use on e-readers.

I. Expand Access to Literature

E-readers must supplement, not replace, access to physical books in carceral institutions or facilities. E-readers should contribute to the overall literary environment.

Access to e-readers must never justify reductions in access to physical books and other physical literary materials. This includes, but is not limited to, physical materials available in libraries, chapels, and classrooms. Books ordered through or donated by prison book organizations and outside book, vendors must also remain accessible or available.

Access to e-readers must never justify a reduction in funds allocated to libraries in carceral institutions.

Access to digital books must not be revoked as a disciplinary measure: Access to literature is a right, not a privilege.

Facilities that adopt e-readers should explore how digital materials can support existing programs inside carceral institutions, including, but not limited to: GED and higher education programs.

Access to e-readers must not supplant or replace in-person education programs, including, but not limited to literacy, continuing education, and English as second language classes, as well as, college-in-prison programs.

II. Pricing

E-reader vendors increasingly use predatory pricing structures for incarcerated persons to access digital tablet content. Departments of Corrections enable providers to extract fees and payments from incarcerated people with little oversight. The burden of communicating with the outside world or accessing literature primarily falls on the families and friends of incarcerated people with few resources.

E-reader tablets must be offered at no-or at minimum, drastically reduced-cost to incarcerated people. E-readers cannot be held up as expanding access to literature for incarcerated people if the cost of purchasing a tablet is prohibitive for a large portion of the incarcerated population-as is currently the case.

E-reader vendors must reject pay-per-use models. Per-minute payment plans unfairly penalize incarcerated people with learning and reading disabilities.

E-reader vendors and carceral institutions must provide free access to digital books that are already a part of the public domain.

E-reader vendors and carceral institutions must provide refunds or repayments to incarcerated users in instances where e-materials and e-books they paid for have been removed from the devices that they use or when devices malfunction or break.

E-reader vendors and carceral institutions must cover the costs of e-book licensing fees, rather than pass the cost of these fees on to incarcerated people, and prison officials must reallocate a portion of prison budgets toward the provision of their incarcerated population's literary needs.

III. E-reader Vendors and Content

E-reader vendors must prioritize and develop e-catalog offerings for incarcerated people's literary, educational, rehabilitative, and recreational needs.

E-reader vendors must make content that meets the literary and educational needs of incarcerated populations, including by developing e-catalog collections in consultation with librarians, educators, and formerly incarcerated people.

E-reader vendors must make content in multiple languages available and be responsive to the cultural needs of incarcerated populations.

E-reader vendors must make a public commitment to offer a wide range of free content and update catalogs regularly.

E-reader vendors must make a variety of materials available for use, including but not limited to, educational and recreational materials. This includes offering content in partnership with libraries and public institutions.

E-reader vendors must avoid or remove agreements that limit incarcerated people's access to materials made freely available to the public, such as Project Gutenberg.

IV. Infrastructure and Access

Digital infrastructure plays a critical role in incarcerated people's ability to access content through e-readers. Direct access to the internet is rarely available to incarcerated individuals.

Carceral institutions must provide consistent and regular access to kiosks to upload and download content.

Carceral institutions must provide a secure internet connection of sufficient bandwidth, capable of uploading and downloading all forms of digital content supported by e-readers (e.g., books, media, and video), within reasonable times.

Carceral institutions must provide rechargeable devices.

Carceral institutions must provide regular maintenance for all equipment needs, including through routine replacement schedules for devices, kiosks, chargers, and network equipment at no charge to incarcerated people.

Carceral institutions must provide assistive technology for incarcerated individuals with disabilities. This assistive technology must be used to supplement, not replace, assistive devices already in use.

Carceral institutions and e-reader vendors must provide continuous/uninterrupted access to their books and digital content through e-readers.

V. Privacy Rights

Carceral institutions, prison libraries, and e-reader vendors must respect the longstanding precept of library institutions and librarians preserving readers' right to privacy and confidentiality in their library use, such as in the American Library Association's Library Bill of Rights and Code of Ethics.

Carceral institutions and e-reader vendors must publicize privacy policies for incarcerated users and protect users' privacy rights.

Carceral institutions and e-reader vendors must publicize all security, data management, and monitoring policies that apply to incarcerated people's e-book catalogs or e-reading practices.

E-reader vendors must adopt guidelines for incarcerated users' privacy consistent with the privacy provisions in the ALA Library Bill of Rights and the ALA Code of Ethics that protects all readers' right to privacy and confidentiality during their library use.

VI. Transparency

Contract negotiations between carceral institutions and e-reader vendors lack transparency, making public oversight of these decisions functionally impossible. This includes a lack of visibility over profit-sharing provisions that may incentivize public officials to prioritize paid-for content over free content. Business agreements, payment structures, and other contractual provisions require greater transparency.

Carceral institutions must proactively make public and accessible all contracts between e-reader vendors and their institutions, as well as all other contracts that affect incarcerated people's access to digital resources (such as with third-party suppliers of digital content).

Carceral institutions must make e-reader vendors commit to making the complete catalog list, prices, and pricing structure of digital content offerings for readers publicly available online, as a precondition to any contractual agreement.

Carceral institutions must make digital content restrictions transparent to the public, including all relevant regulations, content restrictions, and commitments to restrict content specified in contracts between e-reader companies.

Carceral institutions must make publicly available transcripts or other documentation of any discussions with e-reader vendors regarding prohibited or restricted content, including through (a) maintenance of records of all conversations around content inclusion or removal, and (b) ensuring the public availability of these records.

Carceral institutions must make public and accessible privacy policies for incarcerated readers to ensure transparency and public oversight.

VII. Working with Public Libraries

Public libraries near carceral institutions or with relationships to these facilities can provide critical resources through their collections of digital content or as a part of "e-resources" consortia. We encourage carceral institutions, existing prison libraries, and e-reader vendors to explore ways to work with public library systems to share licensed literature and other digital content. We also support agreements that would make incarcerated readers public library patrons and local lending library community members, including agreements that allow for physical book exchanges.

Carceral institutions, in offering access to digital literature to their incarcerated populations, should abide by the principles outlined in the ALA document, "Prisoners' Right To Read," as well as the Library Bill of Rights and uphold the Core Values of Librarianship, including access to information, patron privacy, diversity, education, and lifelong learning, which should be applied to incarcerated library patrons as equally as non-incarcerated library patrons.

Carceral institutions should include public libraries in crucial decision-making processes that involve incarcerated people's access to literature.

Carceral institutions should remove, to the greatest possible extent, discrepancies between digital content offered to the general public and offered to incarcerated people.

Carceral institutions should proactively make public and accessible all contracts or formal arrangements between carceral institutions and public libraries.

Carceral institutions and library systems should administer library cards to incarcerated library patrons and encourage access to public library resources to the greatest extent possible.

Signed,

Alabama Prison Arts + Education Project

ACLU of West Virginia

Alliance for Higher Education in Prison

Ameelio

American Library Association

Appalachian Prison Book Project

Bard Prison Initiative

Be Frank 4 Justice

Black & Pink-Milwaukee

Books Through Bars, Philadelphia

Books To Prisoners

Center for Resilient Individuals, Families and Communities (CRIFC)

Chicago Books to Women in Prison

Delaware Library Association

Emerson Prison Initiative

EveryLibrary

Exchange for Change

Fight for the Future

Filling the Gap

First State First Chance Prison Education Initiative at the University of Delaware

Formerly Incarcerated College Graduates Network

From Prison Cells to PhD

Georgetown University Prisons and Justice Initiative

Hamilton-Herkimer CIPP at Mohawk CF (NY)

IL Coalition for Higher Education in Prison

Illinois Coalition for Higher Education in Prison

John Jay College Institute for Justice & Opportunity

Justice Arts Coalition

LGBT Books to Prisoners

Library Futures

Library Services to the Justice Involved

National Coalition Against Censorship

Nazareth College Jail Project

New York City Books Through Bars

All of Us or None, Ohio

PEN America

Pittsburgh Prison Book Project

Prison + Neighborhood Arts/Education Project

Prison Book Program

Prison Journalism Project

Prison Scholar Fund

Prisoners Literature Project

Rebuilding Independence My Style

Returning Citizens

Rochester Education Justice Initiative

San Francisco Financial Justice Project

San Francisco Public Library

Southwest Wisconsin Library System

Texas Advocates for Justice

The American Prison Writing Archive

The Chillon Project at Life University

The Community

The Jailhouse Lawyers Initiative of LEAH

The Petey Greene Program

Turning Points Resource Center

Wesleyan University Center for Prison Education

Worth Rises

X Books

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Best Practices for E-reader Tablets in Carceral Institutions

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Produced by the Coalition for Carceral Access in Literature and Learning (C.A.L.L.) The introduction of e-reader tablets to carceral institutions is a new and growing trend. When implemented in a way that prioritizes incarcerated people and their loved ones, e-reader access can expand incarcerated people's access to literature and educational materials.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

(New York, NY) - PEN America, alongside a coalition of groups concerned with access to literature and education in prisons, released its Best Practices for E-Reader Tablets in Carceral Institutions. The document, which has been endorsed by 55 organizations, including the Alliance for Higher Education in Prison and The San Francisco Public Library, was developed by PEN America and other members of the Coalition for Carceral Access to Literature and Learning (CALL) in part to respond to growing concerns that e-readers are too often introduced to prisons in ways that supplant, rather than supplement, access to physical books, and that threaten to normalize predatory practices

The Best Practices guidance addresses seven main concerns: Expanding access to literature; pricing; content and e-reader vendor practices; infrastructure and access; privacy rights; transparency around e-reader policies; and collaboration with public libraries. Taken overall, these Best Practices provide a roadmap for policies and practices that prison officials, e-reader vendors, and other actors can commit themselves to in order to ensure that e-readers serve the needs of incarcerated people.

Incarcerated people face a number of problems when it comes to using digital tablets as e-reader devices for accessing literature and learning materials. As more facilities begin to introduce tablets, observers have noted cases where prison officials have touted the tablets as an alternative to physical books-laying the groundwork for expansive bans of physical books in prison facilities. Under some arrangements, tablets are free of charge but come with costly fees. In other cases, incarcerated users must pay for the device and services, with charges often representing an additional financial burden on incarcerated people or their families.

You can read the Best Practices report

"We are at a major inflection point when it comes to access to literature in American prisons. If Americans do not insist on thoughtful policies towards the introduction of e-readers into prisons, we risk exacerbating existing problems such as arbitrary book banning and predatory pricing of e-books. These Best Practices represent a potential path forward that centers the literary, educational, and rehabilitative needs and interests of people in prison," said James Tager, Director of Research at PEN America.

The Coalition for Carceral Access to Literature and Learning, or CALL, is a national group of advocates and academics, formed in 2020 in response to the COVID-19 pandemic and in recognition of its effect on incarcerated people, alongside broader inequities in access to literature and education in prisons. In April 2020, CALL released an open letter , signed by more than 45 organizations, calling on the two largest prison e-reader vendors to waive all fees on incarcerated people's access to digital content during the COVID-19 pandemic.

"We believe that the introduction and use of e-readers in prisons will accelerate, becoming an increasingly common avenue of access to literature. The policies that carceral institutions and e-reader vendors put in place may determine future access to literature for more than 2 million incarcerated persons across the United States", says Jodi Lincoln of the Pittsburgh Prison Book Project, a CALL member.

PEN America's previous work championing access to literature in prison includes its 2019 report, Literature Locked Up: How Prison Book Restriction Policies Constitute the Nation's Largest Book Ban . PEN America also operates the Prison and Justice Writing Program, which earlier this month released the new book The Sentences That Create Us: Crafting A Writer's Life in Prison (Haymarket Books), a collection of essays representing a road map for incarcerated people and their allies to have a thriving writing life behind bars.

PEN America stands at the intersection of literature and human rights to protect open expression in the United States and worldwide. We champion the freedom to write, recognizing the power of the word to transform the world. Our mission is to unite writers and their allies to celebrate creative expression and defend the liberties that make it possible. pen.org

Contact: Suzanne Trimel, PEN America Communications and Media Consultant, STrimel@PEN.org , 201-247-5057

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
New Guidance: E-Readers in Prisons Must Expand Access to Reading, Not Supplant Books Altogether

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
PEN America, alongside a coalition of groups concerned with access to literature and education in prisons, released its Best Practices for E-Reader Tablets in Carceral Institutions.