Report: Ohio prisons ban books about criminal justice reform, allow ‘Mein Kampf’ to circulate
According to research done by The Marshall Project, the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction (ODRC) has been prohibiting prisoners from reading books about criminal justice reform, while allowing other books like Adolf Hitler’s memoir “Mein Kampf.”
According to research done by The Marshall Project, the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction (ODRC) has been prohibiting prisoners from reading books about criminal justice reform, while allowing other books like Adolf Hitler’s memoir “Mein Kampf.”
The Marshall Project put together a database listing all the books banned in several states, with the Ohio prison system specifically stopping inmates from reading about ways their conditions could potentially improve. One book, “Rethinking the American Prison Movement” by Dan Berger and Toussaint Losier, recounts the ongoing struggles caused by harsh prison conditions and efforts to reform prisons in the name of justice. ODRC banned this book in January 2020, and the book is among hundreds of pieces of literature to be prohibited in Ohio prisons from 2018 to 2022.
ODRC’s reason for not letting these books in is because they are “harmful to rehabilitation and prison discipline.” Other banned works include erotic novels, criminal biographies and computer coding guides. The coding guides are banned despite the state having a vocational training program in the state’s prisons.
Meanwhile, other books of the same nature have been allowed. ODRC has allowed a compilation of letters to the erotic Penthouse Magazine, “The Art of Seduction” by Robert Greene and a book about drug kingpin El Chapo (ODRC banned “El Chapo Blood Money” by Luke Johnson banned but no other El Chapo-related books.)
The Marshall Project published banned book lists from 18 states in February as well as an essay from a former inmate detailing her experience with censorship in prison last December.
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