If the Mississippi Department of Corrections has a good reason for restricting inmates’ access to free books, it should provide it.
If not, it seems like an arbitrary decision that runs counter to what should be a priority of the prison system — to rehabilitate those who are incarcerated.
A federal lawsuit has been filed challenging the constitutionality of MDOC’s decision last year to stop allowing a Jackson-based nonprofit group to send anything for free but religious books directly to inmates at two of the state’s prisons — South Mississippi Correctional Facility and the Mississippi State Penitentiary at Parchman.
Why the ban applies just to those institutions and why it applies only to secular books are curious. It can’t be because of fear that contraband could be smuggled inside the packages. Surely, the prison system has the capacity to X-ray any packages at all of its facilities. Besides, if contraband is the issue, a religious book could be as much a potential carrier as a secular one.
One would think that MDOC would not tie the hands of Big House Books, which mails books and other educational materials — including works of fiction and nonfiction, puzzle books, GED manuals and religious texts — that Mississippi inmates request, usually for no cost.
Not only does the reading material give the inmates something productive to do with their time, it builds their literacy skills, which is a big element in rehabilitation since a large percentage of inmates never finished high school.
It’s tough enough for ex-convicts to get hired because of their criminal past. It’s doubly tough for those who are functionally illiterate.
So far, MDOC has hid behind its typically unforthcoming ways, saying it does not comment on active litigation. It has previously said, without explanation, that Big House Books can send the free secular books to the two prisons’ libraries, where any inmate could check them out, or send them to inmates who purchase them.
Maybe MDOC hasn’t provided a rationale for these restrictions because it simply doesn’t have a good one. It is a shame that it takes a lawsuit to force the agency to explain itself.
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