Something to Read in the Can
By Callimachus | Related entries in Law, Supreme CourtCan states use newspapers and magazines to discipline prisoners? And we’re not talking about a smack across the nose with a rolled-up “Boston Evening Transcript.”
The Supreme Court struggled Monday with whether states can keep troublesome inmates from reading secular newspapers and magazines.
Pennsylvania prison officials urged the high court to allow them to use access to newspapers and magazines as an incentive to get inmates to behave themselves.
Good lord; haven’t they seen circulation numbers? People on the outside are fleeing from newspapers and magazines so fast you’d think print media was a Rumsfeld-approved interrogation technique. Now if you really wanted to get a grip on their behavior, allow, and then restrict, access to Internet porn. Let’s get real, shall we?
The “bottom line” in the case, as Justice Stephen Breyer put it, is whether the court should interfere and tell the state how to manage its inmates, or whether prison officials have gone too far and infringed on the free-speech rights of prisoners.
Oh, I see. It’s a state’s rights vs. equal protection thing. Like everything else nowadays. Pity. I still like my Internet porn idea better. Besides, it would make “bottom line” funnier.
But by the argument’s end, several justices seemed willing to give Pennsylvania credit for trying to change its worst-behaved inmates.
Louis J. Rovelli, Pennsylvania’s lawyer, told the justices the state’s policy is reasonable because inmates can earn back the privilege of receiving newspapers and magazines, as well as personal photographs.
Rovelli said the state designed the special unit because most of the 40 or so inmates held there eventually will be released from prison. Before that happens, he said, the state wants to try to “turn them around.”
The unit’s inmates are permitted access to religious newspapers, two paperback books of general interest, their legal documents and letters from family.
I understand the motive, but isn’t there another problem here with the state banning secular, but not religious, newspapers? Which makes the case put forth by opponents of this rule rather odd: “They worry prison officials won’t stop with newspapers but may one day bar access to the Bible.”
This entry was posted on Monday, March 27th, 2006 and is filed under Law, Supreme Court. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
March 27th, 2006 at 7:06 pm
Come on, Cal, not our great state .. the one with salsry increases in the middle of the night? Hey, I have an idea … let’s bring back the “Blue Laws”
March 27th, 2006 at 7:08 pm
Oh, and by the way, they are opening a Casino in Chester … right next to the brand new State Prison. Maybe they would like to read the racing forms.
March 27th, 2006 at 8:22 pm
Why not let the convicts run the state liquor stores if they behave? Oh, wait, we already do that.
March 28th, 2006 at 12:17 pm
Prisoners get bored, so you would be surprised at how many of them would behave just in order to have something to read, especially something that lets them have a window to what is going on in the real world. And, it’s actually state’s rights vs. 1st amendment. Equal protection is something different. Prisoners don’t have the same freedoms as everyone else, but that doesn’t violate equal protection whatsoever, so states can limit this kind of stuff, especially if it’s secular. Freedom of religion is something that is much trickier, so it’s going to be more OK for the state to ban secular things. Opponents are worried that eventually, the prisons will start taking away the prisoners’ religious freedoms, which are still somewhat intact at the moment. On the other hand, limits on the number of books, magazines and newspapers are completely within the discretion of most state correctional facilities.
March 28th, 2006 at 12:49 pm
Given that people tend to like to read what reinforces their personal views, why not get creative?
Why not determine the political/social etc. views of prisoners and then set up a tiered incentive system, from nothing to read, to being able to read only stuff with which a prisoner utterly disagrees, to having access to a “balanced” array, to–nirvana!–being able to read only that which reinforces one’s own beliefs.
Yeah, I’m kidding. Then again …
; )