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.


Get the Book
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.

Support Prison
Banned Books
Week
Partner Organizations
- Black and Pink
- Library Services to the Justice Involved
- Prison Library Project
- Wisconsin Books to Prisoners
- UC Davis Books to Prisoners
- DC Books to Prisons
- Rikers Public Memory Project
- The Petey Greene Program
- Asheville Prison Books
- Malaprop’s Bookstore/Cafe
- Avid Bookshop
- Tubby & Coo’s Traveling Book Shop
- Louisiana Books 2 Prisoners
- Charis Books and More
- Estelita’s Library
- Flyleaf Books
- Da Book Joint
- Rogue Liberation Library
- Prison Creative Arts Project
- Elliott Bay Book Company
- Museum for Black Innovation and Entrepreneurship
- Head House Books
- Boneshaker Books
- Wooden Shoe Books and Records, Inc.
- Blacksburg Books
- Queen Anne Book Company
- Pilsen Community Books
- Outsider Comics
- Books to Prisons-Birmingham