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Literature Locked Up: How Prison Book Restriction Policies Constitute the Nation’S Largest Book Ban

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Literature Locked Up: How Prison Book Restriction Policies Constitute the Nation’S Largest Book Ban September 2019 Literature Locked Up: How Prison Book Restriction Policies Constitute the Nation’s Largest Book Ban ith over two million Ameri- This phenomenon presents a particular chal- cans incarcerated, the book-re- lenge when it comes to reporting and analysis. striction regulations within the There is very little public visibility into how these United States carceral system policies are considered, adopted, implemented represent the largest book ban policy in the Unit- and reviewed. As such, advocates for access to lit- edW States. erature in prisons must often review a disparate The reality of book banning in American pris- set of state, county, and even individual facili- ons is systematic and comprehensive. State and ty-level practices, with varying degrees of public federal prison authorities censor content with lit- accessibility or transparency, to gain even a partial tle oversight or public scrutiny. Often the ultimate view of how book banning procedures play out on decision-maker about a person’s right to read is a national level. housed in the prison mailroom. To highlight this issue of prison book cen- Books in American prisons can be banned on sorship, PEN America has produced this issue vague grounds, with authorities striking titles and briefer outlining the troubled state of the right authors believed to be detrimental to “rehabilita- to read in U.S. prisons. The right to read is one tion” or somehow supportive of criminal behavior. that implicates our fundamental human and con- Such grounds are so arbitrary and so broad that stitutional right. Research clearly indicates that they often operate as sweeping bans. Literature access to literature reduces recidivism and better on civil rights and landmark works rightly critical prepares individuals to thrive when they return to of the American incarceration system—titles like free society. Meaningful access to literature is es- The New Jim Crowand Race Matters—are often sential for incarcerated people, where the written subject to bans. word is a rare source of information, education, And increasingly, prisons are limiting incarcer- and recreation, and a window to the wider world. ated people’s abilities to order books directly, ar- The goal of this briefer is not to demonize guing that such book deliveries represent a secu- prison officials or to belittle legitimate security rity threat. As a result, thousands of incarcerated concerns. It does aim to demonstrate, however, people across the country are seeing their access that the book restrictions in American prisons to books dramatically restricted, regardless of the are often arbitrary, overbroad, opaque, subject to books’ content. little meaningful review, and overly dismissive of PEN America incarcerated people’s right to access literature be- hind bars. The result is a book banning system that fails incarcerated people, and fails to live up to our democratic and Constitutional ideals. As both a practical and a moral matter, it is time to re-evaluate the state of the right to read within American prisons. Definitions This briefer uses the term prison“ officials” or “prison authorities” to refer broadly to state, county, and federal officials involved in promul- gating book restriction policies. Such authorities are often officials within the state departments of corrections, and our use of this term includes ground-level corrections officers. We use the term “prison” to refer broadly to various sites of detention and incarceration. This includes prisons, jails, or other sites related to our criminal justice system which are used to house individuals either awaiting disposition of crimi- nal charges or those who in the post-conviction stage. While this document briefly touches upon jails specifically, a full review of the differences in access to literature between jails and prisons is beyond the scope of this paper, and PEN America expects that jails in particular may be subject to additional pressures against the right to read that are not enumerated here. We use the terms “incarcerated person” and “incarcerated people,” to refer to those affected by these censorship limitations.1 Note that people who have not been convicted of a crime but none- theless held in jail or other pre-trial detention sites are also likely to be affected by these policies. Literature Locked Up: How Prison Book Restriction Policies Constitute the Nation’s Largest Book Ban 2 PEN America SECTION I: CONTENT BASED BANS Section I Content Based Bans hile the specific rules vary from these officials are likely to interpret such broad -di state to state, prison officials rectives in a 1977 dissenting opinion: generally have broad latitude to “A warden seldom will find himself subject ban books based on their con- to public criticism or dismissal because he tent, including the prerogative to develop their needlessly repressed free speech; indeed, own rationales for why a book should be blocked. neither the public nor the warden will have W 2 They usually do so on one of several grounds: any way of knowing when repression was • Sexual content. nudity, or obscenity unnecessary. But a warden's job can be • Depictions of violence or language perceived jeopardized and public criticism is sure to to encourage it come should disorder occur. Consequently, • Depictions of criminal activity or language prison officials inevitably will err on the side perceived to encourage it of too little freedom.” 4 • Depictions of escape or language perceived This is not merely a hypothetical concern. Groups to encourage it that exist to provide books to incarcerated people • Encouragement of “group disruption” or an- have noted that “With enough time and ingenu- ti-authority attitudes or actions ity, prison officials and their lawyers can usually • Racial animus or language perceived to en- imagine some way in which some aspect of a par- courage hatred ticular written work might conceivably have some For purposes of this brief, we refer to these types of marginal effect on prison order or security.” 5 bans as content-based. While all these categories The results have been wide-ranging, from per- may encompass areas of legitimate concern, they verse to absurd to constitutionally troubling, with can be—and in practice often are—construed so bans being applied in ways that defy logic. As just broadly that they essentially serve as convenient a few specific examples: justifications for arbitrary bans. Further, prison • Texas has banned books by Pulitzer Prize officials are allowed to block books even outside winners Alice Walker, Robert Penn War- these categories so long as the text is “detrimental ren, and John Updike; National Book Award to the security, good order, rehabilitation, or dis- winners Joyce Carol Oates and Annie Prou- cipline of the institution.” 3 This type of provision lx; Nobel Prize winners Pablo Neruda and grants officials substantial leeway. Andre Gide; and even George Orwell and One of the nation’s foremost jurists, Supreme former Senator Bob Dole.6 Court Justice Thurgood Marshall, explained how • Officials at one prison in Ohio prevented a Literature Locked Up: How Prison Book Restriction Policies Constitute the Nation’s Largest Book Ban 3 PEN America SECTION I: CONTENT BASED BANS book donation group from sending a biology on the basis of their personal beliefs and biases.14 textbook to an incarcerated person, labeling Their decisions may be accompanied by official the anatomical drawings as “nudity.” 7 explanations or meaningful oversight. Often they • Arizona has banned “Dragonology: The are not. Complete Book of Dragons,” “E=MC2: The second type of censorship occurs at the Simple Physics,” and “Sketching Basics.” 8 prison-wide level. Individual prisons may create • In Tennessee, officials refused to allow the their own institution-specific rules about which literary non-profit Books Through Bars to books are allowed. As a result, certain books may send a book about the Holocaust to an incar- be allowed in one prison and banned in another. cerated person, citing as justification the fact The third type of censorship occurs at thestate - the book included a photo of the nude bodies wide level (or in the case of the federal Bureau of of victims.9 Prisons, the federal level). State departments of • Although they later reversed their decision, correction may have a list of banned books, which officials at a federal prison in Colorado pre- often include thousands of banned titles. Such vented a prisoner from receiving President lists often codify and formalize the practices of Barack Obama’s Memoirs—Dreams from prison mail rooms towards certain books, turning my Father and The Audacity of Hope—say- institution-wide norms into an automatic state- ing the books were “potentially detrimental wide ban. For example: to national security.” 10 Federal officials have • The state of Texas has an official banned list previously attempted to ban Jewish texts in- of over 10,000 banned books, and public re- cluding Rabbi Harold Kushner’s When Bad porting has indicated that the list may now Things Happen to Good People.11 include over 15,000 titles.15 The statewide list • In New York, one prison attempted to ban reportedly includes such books as Salman a book of maps of the Moon, claiming the Rushdie’s Satanic Verses, Alice Walker’s The book could “present risks of escape.” 12 Color Purple, and books on the Civil Rights These examples—and there are many, many more Movement.16 from which to choose—help illustrate the ar- • Florida has a list of over 20,000 banned bitrary and irrational nature of our nation’s ap- books. The nonprofit organization Books proach to book access in our prisons. to Prisoners has noted that this list includes Who Censors? “Klingon dictionaries [and] a coloring book about chickens.” 17 Prison systems function as a hierarchy, mean- • Kansas has had a list of over 7,000 banned ing officials at multiple levels can act as censors books, including “self-help books,” as well as and block incarcerated people’s access to books.
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