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Reading Behind Bars
NCTE:
6.05.2019 by Millie Davis
Federal
courts have repeatedly affirmed that prisoners have a First Amendment right to
read, and that publishers and others have a right to send them reading
materials. While those rights can be restricted in the interest of security,
blocking the free flow of ideas serves no penological purpose. Proponents of
stricter controls on the books available to incarcerated readers argue that
some information is inherently dangerous, but the First Amendment is designed
to prohibit the suppression of information.
The
issue of book banning in prisons has been in the news, particularly in the
intellectual freedom news I receive, for quite some time. It’s been reported
from Washington, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Arizona, Texas, Florida,
and probably from a prison near you.
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But
now prison book banning has come to my town and I need to write about it.
The Education
Justice Project (EJP) housed at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
has a mission “to build a model college-in-prison program that demonstrates the
positive impacts of higher education upon incarcerated people, their families,
the communities from which they come, the host institution, and society as a
whole.” EJP, among other valuable programs, provides a large cohort of the
men incarcerated at the Danville, Illinois, Correctional Center (10-15%) with
upper level college courses toward their bachelor’s degrees. I’ve worked with
EJP and taught several writing workshops at the prison.
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