“Ban Violent Books from Prison Libraries, Urges Connecticut State Senator”
By: Beverly Goldberg, American Libraries US and World News
John Kissel, the Senator for Connecticut, is trying to pass a new policy where all graphically violent books will be removed from libraries in prison. Kissel hopes to enact this new policy due to the claim that inmates may read these books, since they have nothing else to do, and use the graphically, violent material to carry out other crimes. Kissel is hoping to pass this policy without legislation. Even if this policy is not enacted, the prison department hopes to revise the libraries “to meet the educational, informational, and recreational needs of the inmates”. There are many individuals who oppose the banning of violent books in prisons because they believe that it takes more than words in a book to influence individual’s to commit crimes. To take the censorship of books a step further, the article also states how a prison in South Carolina has prohibited all books from inmates except for a Bible.
I am normally an extreme advocate against banning books. In this case, I am torn between both prison situations: I believe that inmates should have access to the Bible and other reading materials, if they choose, but I do believe that graphically violent material should be censored from them in prison. Like giving a drug to an incarcerated drug addict or giving a seductive photo of a child to an incarcerated molester, it seems that giving violent, criminal material to a violent criminal would only “fuel the fire”. More research should definitely be conducted to see if the access or lack of access to violent reading material, in prisons, actually has an effect on the inmates exposed to it.
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