
Sharing Books with My Dad in Prison - unquote
https://lithub.com/how-sharing-books-with-my-dad-in-prison-made-life-bearable-for-both-of-us/
======
bredren
Volunteered for Books for Prisoners in Portland for a time.

Prisoners would write asking for subjects, not by title since that was super
unlikely. Often we would mail a mix of magazines and books.

Every jail has different rules. Each package would get custom consideration
for which jail it was going to.

Sometimes stuff would just get confiscated for no reason.

Some of the letters were sad to read. The appreciation and expression of
thanks for some random book previously sent.

The date it was read by a volunteer and responded to would be sometimes
several months from the date it was written.

It did spur my interest in criminal justice system to some extent. But mostly
I took away how sad the conditions were on the inside. As I took for granted
my ability to choose and read whatever I liked, whenever I liked.

~~~
epicureanideal
Yes, this seems needlessly restrictive. What's the harm in letting someone
with nothing better to do read Harry Potter? I could imagine restrictions on
certain kinds of books... like how to cover up forensic evidence, or how to
tie knots, or whatever... but Harry Potter, or computer programming?

~~~
kasey_junk
There is s legitimate safety concern. That is certain parts of books can be
turned into weapons.

But the real issue is one of control. Treating prisoners as subhuman is a
management practice.

~~~
maxheadroom
> _Treating prisoners as subhuman is a management practice._

 _Slight_ correction: Treating prisoners as subhuman is a _societal_ practice.
( _At least, in the societal context that this discussion and the article are
about._ )

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ajcarpy2005
While I was in prison, I received The Rise of the Creative Class. I also
received an Artificial Intelligence textbook as well. And I received
Headstrong.

I did a lot of reading. In fact, once I got a chance to go to the computer
lab, I wrote upwards of 100 articles. I wrote articles about introductory AI,
health, and science.

~~~
ajcarpy2005
Addendum: I also read a couple dozen business books from the prison library.
Was quite good.

~~~
moneywoes
How was the experience?

~~~
ajcarpy2005
The overall experience of prison monumentally sucked. From the thin mattresses
on the beds to the extreme lack of stimulating things to do...but I got
through it. Having books sent by my dad really did help the experience.

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rootw0rm
inmates are unable to receive used books in San Diego county jails. the books
must be sent new directly from the book store. this greatly increases the cost
of some books. also, due to state-local policies, some inmates do up to 6
years in county jail. county is quite a bit worse than prison in
California....there's way less to do.

~~~
chrisseaton
What's the difference between a jail and a prison? They're the same thing in
my country.

~~~
jdsully
Jails are run by the local municipal or regional governments and generally
speaking only house inmates for sentences of less than a year. San Diego
appears to be an outlier with that 6+ year figure.

A prison is run by the state and is geared towards those with much longer
sentences.

~~~
cobbzilla
California’s horribly overcrowded prisons were found to be unconstitutional
(cruel & unusual punishment), so they were under a court order to fix it. The
“solution” was to transfer lots of prisoners to county jails.

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WalterBright
Prisoners have a human right to be able to read books.

~~~
whatshisface
How can reading books be a human right when humans went 190,000 years without
writing? Was every pre-literate culture violating a human right?

~~~
WalterBright
Prisons are a recent invention. Ancient punishments were execution,
banishment, enslavement or mutilation.

Since people go insane with lack of stimulation in solitary, I'd say
stimulation is indeed a basic human right.

~~~
whatshisface
Does that include all forms of stimulation, or do the jailers get to pick
which kind? Are all needs rights? If so, is a famine an excuse for a human
rights violation (implying that there are circumstantial excuses for violating
human rights), or are people living in poor countries forced to be human
rights violators?

You can pick anything you want, and say people should have it, but if you want
to say there are no excuses for human rights violations then you can't pick
anything you want and call it a right.

On the other hand, if you want it to be widely accepted that there are excuses
for human rights violations, then it's strongly in your interest to have as
many rights as possible. Didn't Saudi Arabia, notorious rights violator, want
internet to be declared a right?

~~~
WalterBright
My definition of a human right is human rights are inalienable, and they do
not require someone else to provide it. The purpose of government is to
protect those rights. (As written in the Declaration of Independence.)

The point of jail is to protect society from people who violate other peoples'
rights. Jail shouldn't be about punishment, torture, etc.

It's well known that removing stimulation from people causes them to go
insane. Hence, such is tantamount from torture. While that isn't specifically
about book reading, preventing a person from reading, human contact, etc., is
removing stimulation. Removing all stimulation violates human rights.

------
iicc
Related - Crossing Divides: 'Reading bedtime stories helped me survive prison'
[https://www.bbc.com/news/stories-47559626](https://www.bbc.com/news/stories-47559626)

>So while going to prison is "never lucky", he says, he considers himself
fortunate to have been signed up for a programme called Storybook Dads.

>This gives prisoners with young children a chance to spend time in a studio
recording bedtime stories, which are then sent to their families at home on CD
or DVD.

