http://www.seattleweekly.com/2007-08-15/ne...-contraband.php

 

I must say that I do some work for Champaign Urbana Books to Prisoners, so I am not entirely unbiased in this. Basically, prisoners write in with requests for books, specific titles/authors etc. and we fill the orders with books that have been donated in the community -- either they just want reading material, want books on skills/GED, a dictionary, etc or just can't afford any books otherwise. There are some minor issues with certain prisons in IL not wanting hardcover books, but nothing bad. Other states are having major problems like the ones in Washington are having. Other states just don't allow books to be sent in to prisoners at all.

 

Illinois seems to have no problem with this program. Why are other states having such a fit about this?

"Offenders are clever, frankly," says DOC spokesperson Mary Christiansen, explaining the rationale behind such stringent policies. "People can hide things very well, and we always have to balance an offender's ability to get legitimate things with security. The balance for us is that offenders do need to read, but we have addressed that by allowing them to buy books from legitimate vendors, versus people just sending books in to somebody."

 

There you go. Privileges get abused by some and it gets taken away from many.

Illinois seems to have no problem with this program. Why are other states having such a fit about this?

 

At the very least, you've gotta give them some coloring books. If you stab a fellow inmate with a crayon, I think that he or she will survive, in most cases.

They would find a way to make the crayon lethal

Edited August 17, 200718 yr by CrimsonWeltall