Prisoners Literature Project

Why and how censorship thrives in American prisons

October 2019  |  Published in Announcements, Latest News

Great article on the censorship of books sent to prisoners – something the PLP also struggles with fairly regularly:

https://bookriot.com/2019/10/21/censorship-in-american-prisons/

““[W]ith prisons, we’ve created an opaque system. Until recently, not many people witnessed the day-to-day activities inside of prison and thus our perceptions have been guided by the most outlying vignettes—fictional portrayals of prison life, like in Oz, or media coverage of riots and other violence. So when prison censors tell us that something is ‘necessary to maintain security,’ it’s easier to believe that security could be easily compromised and that these guards have the expertise to assess the risk correctly,” said Michelle Dillon, a representative of the Human Rights Defense Center (HRDC) and Books to Prisoners.”

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