Prison Culture: Books for the Millions
This message brought to you by a $5 prison breakfast of oatmeal, peanut butter, powdered milk, and a cup of decaffeinated coffee (menu coming soon).
I've been behind the fences of the Florida prison system for a few years now, having spent the majority of my time here at Blessington in Region 1 (Panhandle). As so, I've had this opportunity to observe prison culture in many ways. Books just so happen to be part of the culture here, even as the Florida Department of Corrections (FDC) chokes down harder on our ability to receive them through largely pointless book bans.
Let's start with the...
Book Bans
Yes, there is a master Excel spreadsheet (may it swiftly corrupt and be unrestorable from backup) that the FDC Literature Review Committee (LRC) updates weekly with books that have been rejected at the state level. Books rejected at this level may not enter any FDC facility, and a reason code is generally entered alongside it, such as "depicts how to make a tattoo gun or has artwork that can be used to make tattoos" or "glorifies violence" or "depicts sexual content", or my favorite code of 15 (p), "does not serve a legitimate penological interest".
15 (p) is used as a catchall code when there isn't a better reason to stop a book.
To wit, I've had an HTML and CSS book stopped for 15 (p) while enrolled in a vocational program whose curriculum explicitly declares that students need to understand HTML and CSS! For those who are privy to the Florida Department of Education's course codes, code Y100100 lays out a basic framework that is impossible to fully meet behind concertina wire without major reforms, changes to a system that make things more compatible with actually educating in a carceral environs.
I've also had a copy of Cixin Lu's Three-Body Problem stopped for being "written in code" -- I never finished reading the book on the streets, but I know the book contained mathematical equations as part of the actual storyline. Maths, therefore, are code to the FDC's LRC.
What can you do about it?
I, as a prisoner, can only write a formal request challenging the rejection to ask for a review, and beg for the book to be allowed clearance. Believe me, on any rejected book, I do when I'm actually given notification (which happens less often than it should).
The senders are supposed to also receive written notification that their book has been rejected, and be given a chance to challenge that rejection with the LRC. I suspect and surmise that they frequently are not being given that chance.
Next, let's talk about...
A Love of Books
Surprise it may be to some, but books are loved behind the wires, despite the difficulties we face in getting them. During my time in our Faith and Character Based Program here at Blessington, our wing had its own library of content, both religious and secular, to which I contributed a number of books over time. I would check up on these books, and interestingly, they quickly developed that well-loved, frequently-read look. If you're an analog book lover that spends time amongst the stacks, you know the book look my words've cooked: dog-eared corners, white stripes along the spine as the ink wears over time, disappears for weeks at a time as it can't stay on the 'shelf' for long.
Other books that had been in the boxes we used for book storage longer hadn't developed an eighth of the wear these had.
Science Fiction, Thrillers, Westerns, and Mystery novels were all in big demand in our library there. Down in the main library of the compound, the list starts similarly, but add Manga to the list as we have a growing population of younger ... captive patrons to the system. Historical Fiction has a small, but rabid fanbase, as well.
What can you do about it?
Well, we in prison end up contributing books to the institution library, as no books are purchased by the institution for the general library's use. Law Library is a different matter, but receives little love or updates.
On the outside, prisoner advocacy organizations come together to help donate new or gently used books to prisoners who manage to find out about them through other sources. Florida, ostensibly, makes it harder and harder for organizations who want to do good for people here to do so: look at the Prison Book Program out of Quincy, MA, US -- their main National Prisoner Resource List is banned in Florida prisons.
As result, a special one was made for Florida prisons, with the removal of user-submitted artwork and mentions of 'writing friends' (even though the organizations listed previously were for people trying to find someone of their same faith to have discussions pertaining to their religion) in order to comply with FDC mandates.
You can help your loved ones by finding these lists on their respective websites in the free world, looking through them for programs that offer books to prisoners to see which states and facilities they can send to, and writing your loved one a message with the names and addresses of the programs available in their state.
Include in your message to your person the rules for writing out:
- how frequently can we send a request?
- what categories of books are or aren't available through a program?
- are things other than books available (such as composition books/journals, community 'zines, or guides on meditation)?
- can multiple requests piggyback on one envelope (a common, comradely thing we do here is share one envelope across six requesters)?
And please, tell us the average wait time if advertised; we suspect our facilities of keeping us from learning, but the truth is it can take a few months for many programs to mail us.
Why Are Books Important?
I get it, we're in the Space Age. We just sent four humans out to look at Luna's backside on a trip no one else has ever been on before. There's hopefully some high-resolution footage and photos of this recorded far up beyond the edge of the skybox the rest of us mere mortals shall never breach in this lifetime. Some day, it will be uploaded to the Internet, the global mesh of computers, light bulbs, cars and toasters floating around on Sol III for the masses to see.
But for the millions of us behind the concertina wire, the skybox is shrunken even further, with a grand lack of access to the silicon annex of existence that others get to share in. Our only access to the vast quantity of information that the vast billions potentially have access to is in dead tree format, on paper that gets scrutinized by wary eyes.
I have zero access to Wikipedia, even as I can still recite and recall URLs to articles in this present day, like to my lost but beloved Arcimoto.
I cannot Bing something. I cannot Google. I cannot DuckDuckGo. I cannot Kagi. If it involves the Internet, I cannot even.
This underscores the importance of paper versions of resources for us in prison, especially for those who are on the cusp of going home in weeks or months.
What can you do about it?
We're back to that phase of asking for dead tree versions of content, in the face of a Recycle, Reduce, Reuse wave. I was once a major proponent of "Look, it's on the Internet, just look it up, gosh." But then I took a prison uniform to the knee.
Prisoners generally cannot go online legally to look up their own resources on transitional housing for their end of sentence, or cost of living information, job opportunities, resources to bootstrap their return.rom for when they get out.
For us, it's frequently a case of "Here's your ($50) gate cash on a high priced debit card that's going to eat half of it in three hours; get out. We'll set you up to fail, and keep the light on for ya."
For those of you who are Navigators of a broken system, out here with your beacons to help guide us in, thank you. If you can encourage those in the realms which you Navigate to keep a dead tree version of their info available for us who can't online during or after our sentences, please do. As we try to get back on solid ground, we need every bit of help we can get.
For the rest of you, push for meaningful prison reforms: the Internet is a utility, a tool, a learning place for the many. Even if it's only 30 hours a month, each person in prison should have some level of access (monitored, of course) to make use of it. We're already monitored to the hilt for everything else, including our messages to and from our loved ones, so why not give us Internet and check my Bing searches for "what does an 1/8th acre lot cost in Vida, OR" or "cost of 1200 sq ft manufactured home delivered to Cottage Grove, OR" or "best wood for shou-sugi-ban"?
DNS level filtering exists; you can stop most of the perusing of the adult entertainment sites off the bat. You can knock off most virtual private network services the same way; your DNS filter can be updated to nope additional finds that you do not want us to access.
Provide, however, a way for us to petition against blocks -- not all blocks are logical, equitable, or fairly implemented.
You might learn something about your justice-impacted individual with this. Something you can use to help them succeed.
But in the interim...
Books For The Millions of us, Please.
Thanks for your reading and sharing.
Also, I'm open for book donations. :)
I'm allowed to receive four books per month at my facility at this time.
Hardcover books are allowed if the book does not have a softcover variant. No metal comb bindings. Books must come through an approved vendor, arrive via USPS, and I wish you the best of luck flying through the LRC's ban list.
Until next time, dear readers.