Category: Prison Libraries
Prison Censorship in the Age of Epidemics
In 2019, we saw that censorship is alive and well in the U.S. for 2.2 million incarcerated adults. Prison censorship’s arbitrary nature and content-neutral bans violate human rights and restrict resources for those who need them the most.
Prison Libraries: Shelves Bare and Minds Restless
In an environment where exposure to natural light is limited to sometimes a mere hour a day, the inward illumination that books are capable of providing should be something that is more accessible and available to inmates. But that is rarely the case for most prison libraries.
Charging for the right to read: who really pays?
Ultimately, when it comes to a fundamental right like reading, all prisoners should have equal access regardless of ability to pay. As I have argued before, reading can play an important role in educating and rehabilitating those prisoners who want to reform. When we place barriers to information between prisoners and rehabilitation, I would argue that they aren’t the only ones who pay – we all do.
Windows, Not Walls: Defending Incarcerated People’s Right to Read
The right of incarcerated people to read and the fight to allow them to do so were explored in “Minds Unlocked: Supporting Intellectual Freedom Behind Bars,” at the 2019 ALA Annual in Washington, DC. Librarians, whether they work with incarcerated people or not, are key to helping defend the right to intellectual freedom, and this presentation provided important information on the context of censorship policies and the subjective realities of what incarcerated people are and are not allowed to read.
Intellectual Freedom for the Incarcerated
The incarcerated are an oft-forgotten demographic, but this quality shouldn’t dampen their fundamental human-rights. For US prisoners, access to library materials is wrought with roadblocks built by a tumultuous past.
One thought on “Prison Libraries”
Hi! I’ve been looking into overdrive’s efforts to provide eResources to people who are incarcerated, and have recently been informed that the National Institute of Corrections Overdrive library is not available to or intended for people who are incarcerated (it is for carceral staff and the general public). This blog post mentions the NIC Overdrive collection — https://www.oif.ala.org?p=19604