Forever Young
I have a pretty serious jones for reading, as may have been signaled here before. Libraries (and librarians!) are the occupants of my pedestals. "People are crazy and things are strange" (now where did you hear that before??), but books have a wonderful persistent sameness, yet with a variety that is remarkable.
So you can probably imagine my reaction to this account of what seems undue lazy mindless censorship of a books-for-prisoners program:
Earlier this year, Carla McLean, a librarian and volunteer for the organization Books to Prisoners (the group's function is self-evident), struck up a correspondence with a Buddhist pen pal at the Airway Heights Corrections Center west of Spokane. He was getting books sent to him from both BTP and the Zen Mountain Monastery. Then one day, the packages stopped arriving.
"Why did he not get those books?" she wonders. "It's not because of a three-item limit."
McLean is speaking from Books to Prisoners' headquarters, which occupy a dark, 500-square-foot basement in Seattle's International District. Here, BTP fulfills more than 800 requests per month from prisoners nationwide seeking reading material. The stacks around her reveal an unsurprising truth: Most books the nonprofit receives are donations from individuals looking to empty their homes of used books, which are considered contraband by the Washington State Department of Corrections. So whatever new books BTP manages to get hold of, it sends to prisoners in Washington state prisons.
"Offenders are clever, frankly," says DOC spokesperson Mary Christiansen, explaining the rationale behind such stringent policies. "People can hide things very well, and we always have to balance an offender's ability to get legitimate things with security. The balance for us is that offenders do need to read, but we have addressed that by allowing them to buy books from legitimate vendors, versus people just sending books in to somebody."
While Books to Prisoners had been sending its requested materials to inmates at Airway Heights for years, Andy Chan, who has been volunteering with BTP for more than 10 years, says, "Recently, they just started sending them back with a note: 'Not an approved vendor.'" Similarly, according to McLean, another pen pal at Airway Heights was expecting a package that never arrived. "His grandmother tried to send him books, and they rejected it, saying they didn't come from an approved vendor."
Turns out, grandmothers cannot send books to anyone in a Washington state prison. No one can, unless they're on an "approved vendor list." As of May, Airway Heights joined a growing number of corrections centers in Washington state that only accept books sent by vendors on such lists. (Airway Heights' approved list includes Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Borders, as well as smaller outfits like Lamp Specialties.)
While not mandated by the state, DOC spokesperson Chad Lewis states that "there are some facilities that only allow books to come from certain vendors." While official state policy says that "offenders may receive gift subscriptions and/or publications from any party other than another offender or the friends or family of another unrelated offender," the personal-property policy states that "offenders may acquire personal property only through the following sources: 1. Facility offender stores, 2. Approved vendors."
According to the DOC's Christiansen, "There is a line within the property policy stating that there is an approved vendor list, and it's up to each facility to establish each list of who's approved. That's based on safety and security. It kind of makes a difference based on which vendors are allowed to send things in."
Seattle's Prison Legal News, the nation's longest-running prison newsletter, has had its own share of troubles getting its materials—including books—sent to prisoners. After discovering that PLN wasn't on the initial list at Airway Heights, Editor Paul Wright petitioned for and received approved vendor status.
"It's probably unconstitutional," he says of the lists. "But it's going to take someone to step up to the plate and challenge it."
-clip-
I never managed the first merit badge towards tin-hat conspiracy-theoricist membership. And I don't think this will count either. I'm not saying there is a connection. I am a reader-advocate, very concerned with folks who "never read a book." Frankly, it makes me think of "never having sex." As in, this person might be a tad dysfunctional.
"It's not dark yet, but it's getting there," says my Bob (Wonder Boys still!).
The punchline:
There it sits on your night stand, that book you've meant to read for who knows how long but haven't yet cracked open. Tonight, as you feel its stare from beneath that teetering pile of magazines, know one thing - you are not alone.
One in four adults read no books at all in the past year, according to an Associated Press-Ipsos poll released Tuesday. Of those who did read, women and older people were most avid, and religious works and popular fiction were the top choices.
The survey reveals a nation whose book readers, on the whole, can hardly be called ravenous. The typical person claimed to have read four books in the last year - half read more and half read fewer. Excluding those who hadn't read any, the usual number read was seven.
"I just get sleepy when I read," said Richard Bustos of Dallas, a habit with which millions of Americans can doubtless identify. Bustos, a 34-year-old project manager for a telecommunications company, said he had not read any books in the last year and would rather spend time in his backyard pool.
That choice by Bustos and others is reflected in book sales, which have been flat in recent years and are expected to stay that way indefinitely. Analysts attribute the listlessness to competition from the Internet and other media, the unsteady economy and a well-established industry with limited opportunities for expansion.
When the Gallup Poll asked in 2005 how many books people had at least started - a similar but not directly comparable question - the typical answer was five. That was down from 10 in 1999, but close to the 1990 response of six.
-clip-
So you can probably imagine my reaction to this account of what seems undue lazy mindless censorship of a books-for-prisoners program:
Earlier this year, Carla McLean, a librarian and volunteer for the organization Books to Prisoners (the group's function is self-evident), struck up a correspondence with a Buddhist pen pal at the Airway Heights Corrections Center west of Spokane. He was getting books sent to him from both BTP and the Zen Mountain Monastery. Then one day, the packages stopped arriving.
"Why did he not get those books?" she wonders. "It's not because of a three-item limit."
McLean is speaking from Books to Prisoners' headquarters, which occupy a dark, 500-square-foot basement in Seattle's International District. Here, BTP fulfills more than 800 requests per month from prisoners nationwide seeking reading material. The stacks around her reveal an unsurprising truth: Most books the nonprofit receives are donations from individuals looking to empty their homes of used books, which are considered contraband by the Washington State Department of Corrections. So whatever new books BTP manages to get hold of, it sends to prisoners in Washington state prisons.
"Offenders are clever, frankly," says DOC spokesperson Mary Christiansen, explaining the rationale behind such stringent policies. "People can hide things very well, and we always have to balance an offender's ability to get legitimate things with security. The balance for us is that offenders do need to read, but we have addressed that by allowing them to buy books from legitimate vendors, versus people just sending books in to somebody."
While Books to Prisoners had been sending its requested materials to inmates at Airway Heights for years, Andy Chan, who has been volunteering with BTP for more than 10 years, says, "Recently, they just started sending them back with a note: 'Not an approved vendor.'" Similarly, according to McLean, another pen pal at Airway Heights was expecting a package that never arrived. "His grandmother tried to send him books, and they rejected it, saying they didn't come from an approved vendor."
Turns out, grandmothers cannot send books to anyone in a Washington state prison. No one can, unless they're on an "approved vendor list." As of May, Airway Heights joined a growing number of corrections centers in Washington state that only accept books sent by vendors on such lists. (Airway Heights' approved list includes Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Borders, as well as smaller outfits like Lamp Specialties.)
While not mandated by the state, DOC spokesperson Chad Lewis states that "there are some facilities that only allow books to come from certain vendors." While official state policy says that "offenders may receive gift subscriptions and/or publications from any party other than another offender or the friends or family of another unrelated offender," the personal-property policy states that "offenders may acquire personal property only through the following sources: 1. Facility offender stores, 2. Approved vendors."
According to the DOC's Christiansen, "There is a line within the property policy stating that there is an approved vendor list, and it's up to each facility to establish each list of who's approved. That's based on safety and security. It kind of makes a difference based on which vendors are allowed to send things in."
Seattle's Prison Legal News, the nation's longest-running prison newsletter, has had its own share of troubles getting its materials—including books—sent to prisoners. After discovering that PLN wasn't on the initial list at Airway Heights, Editor Paul Wright petitioned for and received approved vendor status.
"It's probably unconstitutional," he says of the lists. "But it's going to take someone to step up to the plate and challenge it."
-clip-
I never managed the first merit badge towards tin-hat conspiracy-theoricist membership. And I don't think this will count either. I'm not saying there is a connection. I am a reader-advocate, very concerned with folks who "never read a book." Frankly, it makes me think of "never having sex." As in, this person might be a tad dysfunctional.
"It's not dark yet, but it's getting there," says my Bob (Wonder Boys still!).
The punchline:
There it sits on your night stand, that book you've meant to read for who knows how long but haven't yet cracked open. Tonight, as you feel its stare from beneath that teetering pile of magazines, know one thing - you are not alone.
One in four adults read no books at all in the past year, according to an Associated Press-Ipsos poll released Tuesday. Of those who did read, women and older people were most avid, and religious works and popular fiction were the top choices.
The survey reveals a nation whose book readers, on the whole, can hardly be called ravenous. The typical person claimed to have read four books in the last year - half read more and half read fewer. Excluding those who hadn't read any, the usual number read was seven.
"I just get sleepy when I read," said Richard Bustos of Dallas, a habit with which millions of Americans can doubtless identify. Bustos, a 34-year-old project manager for a telecommunications company, said he had not read any books in the last year and would rather spend time in his backyard pool.
That choice by Bustos and others is reflected in book sales, which have been flat in recent years and are expected to stay that way indefinitely. Analysts attribute the listlessness to competition from the Internet and other media, the unsteady economy and a well-established industry with limited opportunities for expansion.
When the Gallup Poll asked in 2005 how many books people had at least started - a similar but not directly comparable question - the typical answer was five. That was down from 10 in 1999, but close to the 1990 response of six.
-clip-
posted by Sir Gumbo at 9:43 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home