Prisons are the largest censors in the United States.

Prisons and jails ban more books than all public schools and libraries combined. Prison Banned Books Week is an annual campaign that shines a light on this widespread censorship and advocates for the rights of incarcerated and detained people to access literature and express themselves freely. In partnership with organizations that champion free expression, the campaign underscores a powerful message: censorship has no place in a democracy.

The third, annual Prison Banned Books Week will focus on the exponential rise of “approved vendor” and mail scanning policies in jails. Jails are denying detained people access to paper books and correspondence in droves. Denying independent booksellers the ability to send books and family member and friends the ability to communicate with their detained loved ones these policies are being quietly implemented by jails around the country under the specious claim that mail is the primary conduit of contraband.

This Prison Banned Books Week, we will be highlighting local jails that limit books and letters as well as those that don’t. Comparing these policies and practices will help everyone understand how reading and communication is an unmitigated good that should not be limited.

Have prisons and jails always banned books? Why do prisons and jails censor what people can read? What kinds of books are censored? What have people been doing to try and resist these limits on reading? Find out more in this history of prison book programs.

Partner Organizations

ACLU
Prison Policy Initiative
American Book Sellers for Free Expression
Every Library
Electronic Frontier Foundation
Incite
Princeton University Press
Haymarket Books, Books not Bars
Cornel Prison Education Program
San Francisco Public Library, Jail and Reentry Services
Abolition Comix
Defending Rights & Dissent
Prison Library Support Network
Midwest Books to Prisoners
Apallacia Prison Book Project
Saxapahaw Prison Books Program
Prison Book Program, Quincy
Books to Prisoners, Seattle
Chicago Books to Women in Prison
Books Beyond Bars
Porter Square Books
Burning Books
Freer Records
Radical Reversal
Book People
BIg House Books
Prison Literature Project, because books open doors.
The University of North Carolina Press
The Maoist Internationalist Ministry of Prisons
Old Firehouse BOoks

To reach Founder and Director of Prison Banned Books Week, Dr. Moira Marquis, please email: prisonbannedbooksweek@gmail.com

To send a loved one inside books please reach out to your local prison book program.

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