Prison serves three purposes: to incarcerate (segregate criminals from the general population), to punish (discouraging criminals from committing crimes in the future), and to rehabilitate (to give criminals the ability to rejoin society someday in a productive fashion).
The American penal system — supported, sadly, by a large chunk of the American public — have largely given up on that third purpose. And as a result, prison becomes more harsh, and more likely to create repeat offenders.
This latest set of policy changes in the federal prison system is emblematic. Books are no small thing in prison. They can be materials that help train or inspire a prisoner in changing their life. They can be a way to occupy oneself that isn’t a communal TV or causing trouble.
And now, by federal fiat, they will be much, much more expensive, and much less convenient to acquire.
To be clear, I’m not suggesting that prisoners should have it easy. But I’m not sure making it harder on them in this way is helpful.
In parallel, federal prison regs now make it more difficult to stay in touch with people on the outside, by forcing all prisoner email contact lists to be unique — two prisoners with the same friend on the outside, or family member, or pen pal (or, perhaps, journalist associate) will have to go through a special process for both of them to be able to correspond.
Because further isolation of prisoners is surely going to help them have lives to return to outside.
And making it harder for journalists to stay in touch with prisoners will certainly improve prison conditions, too, right?
New Federal Prison Policies May Put Books and Email on Ice
The Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) is quietly rolling out a pair of new policies that could restrict access to books and communications…
Learn some lessons from the Finnish prisons, perhaps – or maybe nationalise all the prisons and remove the incentives for people putting people in them.
It is probably intended to hinder jail-house lawyers.
+Travis Bird No, it's just rich old white guys who run for-profit prisons guaranteeing return customers.
+andrew mcmillan Last I checked, Finland had like a dozen cells total of high-security, and most of the prisons were more like residential job training centers, right?
US culture has the horrible combination of Puritan righteousness and the belief that the poor/homeless/criminals are where they are because they deserve punishment because they brought it all upon themselves.
+Stan Pedzick Sad, but true.
If those reality "Prison" documentaries are to be taken at face value, many US prisons already restrict books to mainly Christian religious texts anyway.
+Al Hunt There are definite restrictions on material, though they vary from institution to institution (and at the federal, state, and county level).
https://www.bustle.com/articles/86997-9-things-you-didnt-know-about-books-in-us-prisons
https://nicic.gov/censorship-and-banned-book-lists-correctional-facilities
http://www.bookstoprisoners.net/banned-book-lists/