Banned books
An excessive restriction on reading materials infantilizes incarcerated adults and contributes to an environment of distrust between inmates and correctional officers that hampers rehabilitative goals. The costs outweigh the benefits.
Banned book lists
In many states the Department of Corrections maintains strict guidelines about allowable content in publications. These rules are often broadly worded, inconsistently implemented, and promote sweeping book bans under the guise of risk management. What defines “sexual content”? Is it appropriate, or fair, that this categorization is used to deny National Geographic magazines, photography books, and drawing instruction manuals? At what point does a symbol have the potential to be so inflammatory that a publication containing the symbol may not be read by any inmate in a prison?
General guidelines can be accessed for many states by searching online. These lists are accumulated over time by prison mail rooms and typically result in automatic bans on certain publications. Prisons maintain these lists as filters for incoming publications; such policies favor restriction when any doubt about appropriateness exists. Prisoners have little leverage to remove books and magazines from lists, and the decisions that land publications on banned books lists are rarely reviewed.
Our hope is that one day these restrictions will be lifted. We need to challenge these overly inclusive lists as what they really are: Codified censorship for a vulnerable population.
We've compiled banned books lists and organized them by state. Learn more at the link below.
Media coverage
The fight against censorship
A selected list of recent coverage of the work by Books to Prisoners & our networks.
PEN America, Reading Between the Bars: An In-Depth Look at Prison Censorship, 10/25/23
The Marshall Project, The Books Banned in Your State’s Prisons, 12/21/22
Book Riot, Why and How Censorship Thrives in American Prisons, 10/21/19
Seattle PI, ‘Threats to Security’: Fifty Shades, Boy Scouts Handbook and Other Books Rejected From WA Prisons, 9/24/19
PEN America, Literature Locked Up: How Prison Book Restriction Policies Constitute the Nation’s Largest Book Ban, 9/24/19
The Firestorm Collective, Prisoner Solidarity: A Conversation with Asheville Prison Books, 9/23/19
ALA Office for Intellectual Freedom, Windows, Not Walls: Defending Incarcerated People’s Right to Read, 9/11/19
Washington Post Magazine, Coloring Books, Klingon Dictionaries and Other Books Banned by State Prisons, 9/10/19
Black Agenda Report, Slavery is Model for US Prison Book-Banning, 9/10/19
CJOnline, Corrections Secretary Eliminates Banned Book List for Kansas Prisoners, Deploys New Policy, 8/21/19
WILL (Illinois Public Media), The Reason Why Hundreds of Books Were Removed From an Illinois Prison Library, 8/15/19
Bridge, Michigan Prison Inmates Need Job Skills, But Technology Books are Banned, 7/18/19
Salem Reporter, Oregon Prisons Ban Dozens of Technology and Computing Books Over Security Concerns, 6/18/19
KCUR, 7,000 Books and Magazines are Banned in Kansas Prisons. Here are Some of Them., 6/17/19
Salon, Why are Books Banned in Prison? Sex, Drugs, and a Critique of Systemic Oppression, 6/15/19
WILL (Illinois Public Media), ‘It’s Heartbreaking’ Authors Criticize Removal of 200 Books From an Illinois Prison Library, 6/6/19
Newsweek, Kansas Prisoners Banned From Reading ‘A Game of Thrones’ Along With Thousands of Other Books, 5/31/19
Book Riot, New Hampshire Prisons Ban Books Critical of Prison System, Award Winners, 5/28/19
NPR, Arizona Prisons Urged to Reverse Ban on ‘Chokehold’ Book, 5/22/19
Annotated Podcast (Book Riot), Why Would a Prison Ban a Map of Westeros?, 5/20/19
Book Riot, Ohio Becomes Latest State to Attempt to Stop Book Donations to Incarcerated, 5/9/19
The Seattle Review of Books, ‘Access to Information is Not an Easy Thing to Come By in Prisons’, 4/24/19
The Seattle Times, Corrections Officials’ Claims of Contraband in Used Books Mailed to Washington Inmates Don’t Add Up, 4/10/19
The Stranger, Washington Prisoners May No Longer Be Able to Receive Donated Books, 4/1/19
The Washington Post, Incarcerated Pennsylvanians Now Have to Pay $150 to Read. We Should All be Outraged., 10/11/18
Prison Book Clubs, Amicus Brief in Support of HRDC Supreme Court Petition, 10/2018
The Philadelphia Inquirer, One Review of PA Prisons Pricey Ebooks: ‘Books that are available for free, that nobody wants anyway’, 9/21/18