Prison Banned Books Week 2024

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.

Raising awareness of this most pervasive practice of censorship in America, the fourth, annual Prison Banned Books Week brings together over sixty organizations working for free expression. Independent booksellers, libraries, prison book programs, civil and First Amendment rights organizations and legal advocacy organizations work tirelessly to ensure the free access to information and ideas necessary for a democratic society.

Online Events

October 1, 2-3:30pm EST: “Aggrieved: How Prisons Suppress Reading and Writing” a podcast discussion hosted by Project Mend and Syracuse University’s Lender Center for Social Justice. Learn about what appeals are and how they suppress access to reading materials.
October 20, 7pm EST: ACLU and Haymarket Books with formerly incarcerated author, Stevie Wilson. Join us for an online panel on appeals and censorship inside.
October 21, 1-3pm EST: MuckRock’s Data Liberation Project and Prison Policy Initiative. Join us for an online FOIA training. Learn how to file a Freedom of Information Act request at your local prison or jail. Check back for link to join.
October 23, 2-4pm EST: Join Prison Banned Books Week and The Remedy Project to learn how loved ones can help their people inside to help file an appeal. Remedy Project will lead this training and show how they have help file FOIAs in federal prisons and we’ll be sharing the Free Read Manual for people with loved ones in state facilities. Link to join coming soon!

Learn more about carceral censorship

‘The Art of War’ and Amy Schumer’s Memoir are among the many books banned in prisons: Here’s why

Associated Press

This Technology Was Supposed to Help People in Prison. It’s Backfiring in a Big Way

Slate

From ‘The 48 Laws of Power’ to ‘Prison Ramen’: The most-commonly banned books in U.S. prisons

NPR

Prison Tablets and Borges’s ‘Infinite Library’

Library Journal

Ending Carceral Censorship

Inquest

Reading Isn’t a Crime

The Hill

Tablets Contribute to Censorship

Prison Policy Initiative

Escaping Prison with Role-Playing Games

Imaginary Worlds Podcast

Get the Book

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! Written by longtime prison book volunteers, lawyers, currently and formerly incarcerated people, this book explains carceral censorship and what prison books programs are doing about it.

Buy the Book

Partner Organizations

CONTACT

prisonbannedbooksweek@gmail

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