Tales From A Brazilian Prison
If you’re like me, you’d like to go to prison in Brazil. Well, maybe “like” is the wrong word; they are vastly overcrowded, disease ridden, and hundreds die every year from gang related conflict. That in mind though, there is a program in some Brazilian prisons that seems made for me. For every book an inmate reads and writes a report on, four days get taken off of their sentence. Exploring the new worlds and new civilizations that literature can provide can also set you free.
Books are doorways to expanding skillsets and worldviews beyond the environment at your fingertips. Most U.S. Prisons offer its residents some kind of access to literature. Through prison libraries and college-in-prison programs, inmates are afforded not only the opportunity to read about the outside world, but to also begin to understand how they got to where they are and what they can do to make sure it doesn’t happen again.
We may not offer a direct “time off for books read” system like Brazil, but we offer access to literature for a similar reason. We have literacy programs in prisons because they work. According to some studies, literacy and education programs in prison decreases recidivism by approximately 43%. That same study also found that for every $1 spent on education in prison, it saves $5 in taxpayers paying for reincarceration.
I’ve written about the value of fiction before, (see last October,) and how valuable stories can be in conveying truth. It works while locked up, as well. Offering inmates the opportunity to encounter other cultures and other ways of thinking can highlight paths they never thought were available to them. Paths that don’t lead back to prison.
That’s why when it was reported that Illinois prisons spent less than $300 on books in 2017, even the corrections officers were upset. Turns out having access to literacy opportunities makes the inmates easier to work with. If an inmate can see a future that doesn’t circle back to incarceration, they become as invested in their rehabilitation as anyone else.
In February of this year, NPR outlined how many former inmates credit access to diverse literature with their rehabilitation. The article discusses how literature, as part of an education program, and works of fiction can both be valuable because of the diverse world of options they illustrate for those incarcerated.
So, of course, over the past few years, there has been an uptick in Illinois prisons censoring what works can be found on their shelves. Different prison systems can censor at their discretion leading to an arbitrary allotment of topics.
As long-time readers know, I’m pretty anti-censorship, but I can understand banning things like instructions on escaping from handcuffs. That seems like a legitimate concern. Even the Brazilian program cracks down on stuff like that.
What bothers me is that administrators are using these censorship policies to ban works like “The Color Purple” for being racially motivated. Inmates want and need works that allow them to identify as more than an inmate. They need works that engage their minds and hearts. They need works that affirm their humanity. If we censor them out, how can we expect them to grow into members of society?
The good news is, the Illinois Department of Corrections is an example of as system trying to get it right. They are revising policies when it comes to censorship and trying to unify the institutions across the state. It’s a long process though. If we strive to foster a love and responsibility for literature, the less we will feel a need to censor.
