My first brush with mailroom censors got here after I was in a county jail in upstate New York within the winter of 2010. After nearly a decade of fighting heroin habit, I’d gotten arrested only a few days earlier than I used to be supposed to complete my final semester at Cornell.
I’d by no means been in jail earlier than, and as soon as I noticed that the everyday cellblock routine included a complete lot of nothing, I advised myself I might use the lengthy, empty hours to work on one of many few remaining papers I wanted to graduate. I might do one thing productive to get my life again on observe, I believed, whereas additionally distracting myself from the enormity of my errors and the looming menace of jail time.
Fortunately, I had household to help me, they usually supplied to ship in my (admittedly voluminous) notes for the paper. However there was an issue: The paper was an evaluation of World Warfare II propaganda — so my notes consisted of lots of of index playing cards full of descriptions of Nazi movies.
The jail employees didn’t enable me to have them — however not due to the Nazi content material. White supremacy was high quality, apparently. Notecards, nevertheless, weren’t.
On the time, I discovered it hilariously weird. However now, greater than a decade later, I write about incarceration for a dwelling, so I do know that such absurdities are widespread. Many jail methods ban studying supplies due to their codecs: No hardbacks! No pop-ups! However usually, it’s the content material they object to — besides after they don’t. Solely a handful of jail methods ban Adolf Hitler’s “Mein Kampf.”
For nearly a yr, The Marshall Mission has been amassing lists and insurance policies within the hopes of publishing a database of all of the books that corrections departments block incarcerated individuals from proudly owning.
This week, we obtained as shut as we might. Our software consists of banned titles in 18 states, and we’ll add extra over time. As with a number of knowledge that comes out of prisons, there have been issues. One state didn’t reply to my data requests in any respect. A handful despatched unusable, messy knowledge. And about half of states — in addition to the Federal Bureau of Prisons — stated they don’t preserve lists.
As a substitute, authorities in these states usually consider every publication because it is available in — which means {that a} e book rejected at one jail could also be permitted at one other, or a e book that’s banned one month may very well be allowed within the subsequent. The procedures in states which do have banned books lists usually begin when the mailroom employees at one jail flag an incoming e book (usually ordered on-line by a prisoner’s pals or members of the family), then refer it to a evaluation committee or a higher-ranking official to resolve whether or not it ought to be prohibited statewide.
The ensuing lists range broadly: Whereas Florida bans greater than 20,000 titles and Texas bans practically 10,000, Rhode Island prohibits simply 68. Nebraska maintains a listing for less than one in every of its 9 prisons, whereas Wyoming has a unique record for every facility. In complete, greater than 54,000 books are banned behind bars.Once I began wanting via all of the prohibited titles, the very first thing I observed was that jail methods the place a lot of books are banned should not usually safer or much less chaotic than those who don’t ban many titles. Possibly that’s partially due to the second factor I observed: Lots of the justifications for the bans have been absurd. Some states deemed Dungeons & Dragons books a safety “menace,” whereas others banned many yoga books and anatomy texts over “specific” illustrations.
“I’ve heard of only a few e book bans that truly appeared logical at any level in historical past,” stated Keramet Reiter, a legislation professor on the College of California Irvine. Virginia prisons ban her e book, “23/7: Pelican Bay Jail and The Rise of Lengthy Time period Solitary Confinement,” as a result of the state stated it promotes violence or legal exercise.
“The concept that a e book from a high college press in regards to the historical past of prisons can be banned is stunning,” Reiter stated. “What’s so disturbing in regards to the historical past of those establishments that the individuals operating them really feel like it might probably’t be advised?”
Not each state supplied justifications for its literary prohibitions, however those who did usually cited intercourse and nudity. Connecticut deemed “Operating with Scissors” — Augusten Burroughs’ New York Occasions-bestselling memoir about rising up in a dysfunctional household — “sexually specific materials.” Louisiana prohibited a 700-page e book that includes the artwork of Leonardo da Vinci as a result of it contained nudity. In Texas, a visible Spanish-English dictionary was banned for a similar purpose, though prisoners there are pressured to see dozens of nude individuals every day after they bear group strip searches on the way in which to and from out of doors work assignments.
Many states additionally banned books over content material referring to violence or combating — though prisoners have already got entry to authorized paperwork and court docket filings describing violent crimes intimately. So whereas incarcerated individuals can go to the legislation library to examine rapes and murders — in Virginia they can’t have World of Warcraft books, and in Texas, they can’t personal books about Tai Chi, a type of martial artwork recognized for gradual, meditative actions.
Common “safety” was one other widespread purpose for disallowing books. And whereas it’d make sense that Virginia bans a e book referred to as “Arrest-Proof Your self,” it’s more durable to see why the state deems “Monster E book of Manga Drawing” a safety danger. Or why Michigan views “Web for Dummies” as a “menace to the order and safety of the establishment.” (Once I tried to seek out out why, Chris Gautz, a spokesman for the jail system, advised me the e book had been banned 12 years in the past and that state officers are reviewing and reconsidering all the prohibited titles “to find out if selections made in years previous are nonetheless related at the moment.”)
Earlier this yr, Florida banned my very own e book — a memoir about why I went to jail and the way I cleaned up my life afterward — after the state deemed it “dangerously inflammatory” and a “menace to the safety, order or rehabilitative targets of the correctional system.” (The state says it’s reconsidering the ban and expects to decide by the top of the yr.)
Maybe extra troubling than the books which might be banned are these that aren’t. Of the states that despatched lists, solely seven explicitly banned “Mein Kampf,” and solely 4 banned “The Turner Diaries,” a 1976 extremist textual content about exterminating individuals who aren’t White. Whereas Texas prisoners can learn Hitler’s manifesto, the state banned pioneering Black journalist Ida B. Wells’ e book “On Lynchings” as a result of its examination of racist vigilante mobs used “racial slurs.” Equally, Louisiana bans texts by Black jail abolitionists, together with George Jackson’s “Blood in My Eye” and Mariame Kaba’s “We Do This ‘Til We Free Us,” for being “racially inflammatory.” Nevertheless it permits “Mein Kampf,” in addition to each single e book talked about within the Southern Poverty Legislation Heart’s round-up of racist literature.
After my censorship expertise again in 2010, I spent a couple of extra months in county jail earlier than I obtained sentenced and shipped off to jail. For the remainder of the time I used to be incarcerated — 21 months complete — I by no means had one other brush with censorship behind bars. That’s as a result of I did my time in New York, which doesn’t preserve a banned books record and is usually permissive with regards to studying supplies.
So I didn’t actually must take care of jail e book bans once more till this yr — when Florida banned mine.
