Behind the Walls, Between the Pages: Controlling Knowledge and History in Carceral Spaces

• In Event: Carceral Cultures, Spaces and Knowledge

Abstract

Book censorship policies in prisons are most often considered to be a matter of security and risk management. However, the censorial procedures utilized by prison authorities to make decisions as to what titles are allowed to prisoners and which will be prohibited are subject to arbitrary, subjective, and political assessment of the content. Very often books are turned away for reasons that seem to reflect the prison’s policies for censorship, but upon closer inspection these titles are revealed to contain no content which can be defined as that which reflects or is reasonably related to the legitimate penological interests of the institution. Instead, they are those that provide prisoners with a marginalized or alternative view of history, of their current condition, and provide a critique of the criminal justice system and of the state itself. Drawing upon lists of prohibited and allowed materials within a specific prison system, this paper explores the ways in which logics of security, as they exist around censorial measures, effort to limit acquisition of ‘dangerous knowledge’ in order to construct a markedly pacified and depoliticized inmate population.

Author

• Kyra Ann Martinez, Eastern Kentucky University