Incarcerated people are baffled by the state’s book screening process.
Incarcerated people in Ohio have been denied access to books like a U.S. Army survival manual, “The Witches’ Bible,” several computer programming guides, prison abolition literature, and a book about imprisoned drug lord El Chapo.
In 2019, after ODRC instituted new policies that made it harder for prisoners to receive used books, multiple organizations told media outlets that donating books had gotten harder. In response, the agency carved out an exception for nonprofit organizations that send books to prisons for free. Joshua Bloch, the author of “Effective Java,” a guide to the popular computer programming language, which showed up on the banned list, said he’d never heard of his book being banned in any context until he was asked by The Marshall Project about the state’s ban. Bloch described his book as a style guide for writing good computer code, which could help someone find employment in a high-earning field after their release from prison.
Bloch disagreed. “Could you use [programming skills] for hacking? Well yes, but if you improve your English skills you could use it for social engineering,” he said. “That didn’t seem like a good reason to ban a book.” According to Thompson’s lawsuit against the New York prison system, prison officials blocked her book from reaching people behind bars because it encouraged disobedience toward law enforcement and prison personnel. “At no point is [“Blood in the Water”] a recipe book for what you would do to actually get out of a prison or escape,” she said.
“Black on Black Violence: The Psychodynamics of Black Self-Annihilation in Service of White Domination” was also banned because both a Correctional Reception Center staff member and Publication Screening Committee members said it encouraged violence. But on the page specifically flagged by the prison staff member, the book merely argues that Black on Black violence is a product of white supremacy.
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