From Book Patrol ➤ It is hard to fathom how they got here but the West Virginia Division of Corrections and Rehabilitation is charging inmates to read!

As part of their contract with a private company inmates are provided “free” tablets in which they can access Project Gutenberg, an emporium of free, public domain texts.

Sounds great right?

Well, seems like free ain’t free.

From the Appalachian Prison Book Project:

The per-minute charge will bring in far more profit than an e-book vendor who charges a set price for downloads, as the cost to read a book far exceeds the cost to purchase one. And that cost will be especially unfair to new readers and people with dyslexia.
The paperback version of 1984 is about 330 pages. It will take a person who is able to read 30 pages per hour about 11 hours to read the novel. At the discounted $0.03/minute usage fee, 11 hours of reading a free book will cost a person about $19.80—and this is if you don’t stop to think or re-read.

Continue reading @ Book Patrol

The Cost Of Reading In Prison ➤ In West Virginia It’s 5 Cents A Minute

From Book Patrol ➤ It is hard to fathom how they got here but the West Virginia Division of Corrections and Rehabilitation is charging inmates to read!

As part of their contract with a private company inmates are provided “free” tablets in which they can access Project Gutenberg, an emporium of free, public domain texts.

Sounds great right?

Well, seems like free ain’t free.

From the Appalachian Prison Book Project:

The per-minute charge will bring in far more profit than an e-book vendor who charges a set price for downloads, as the cost to read a book far exceeds the cost to purchase one. And that cost will be especially unfair to new readers and people with dyslexia.
The paperback version of 1984 is about 330 pages. It will take a person who is able to read 30 pages per hour about 11 hours to read the novel. At the discounted $0.03/minute usage fee, 11 hours of reading a free book will cost a person about $19.80—and this is if you don’t stop to think or re-read.

Continue reading @ Book Patrol

11 comments:

  1. Prison shouldn't be about the continuous punishment of the criminal. If punishment is the focus recidivism will flourish. The sentence is the punishment and everything else should be geared towards rehabilitation.

    Denying reading material goes against rehabilitation and favours punishment. That is wrong. Requiring prisoners to pay to read is merely private profiteering from the punishment and incarceration of people. Profiting from prisoners is a hateful concept.

    Reading should be encouraged and facilitated for rehabilitation. Punishment should be avoided once someone is locked up and liberty is lost and profiteering should never enter the equation.

    Any surprise more than 1% of the population of the USA are incarcerated and the recidivism rates are so high? The owners of their privately run prisons and services including ebook delivery must be laughing all the way to the bank. Who are the real criminals?

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    1. Simon - from February 79 to almost the end of the protest mirror searches were mandatory on every wing shift and going to and back from visits. The "heavy reading" incidents only took place after visits as the search took place in Cell 26 where the books were stacked and within easy reach of the screws. The wing shift searches took place on the wing just before the grills and the wings were bare.

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  2. Simon - depriving reading material was always a favoured punishment of prison management. During the blanket protest the nearest we came to a book was getting beat over the head with it during the mirror search (an occasional act and usually by one vindictive screw), I never read a book for three years

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    1. I am sorry Anthony, your story almost stretches the imagination too far. If the screw wasn't hitting you with the book I would be wondering what he'd be doing with it. I almost thought it was the metaphorical book like 'threw the book at you". Maybe it was a book on cocktail recipes as we know they're fond of the sauce. Hell, who isn't but their penchant for booze surely fueled the violence.

      If political prisoners don't need rehabilitation, just like those who fall victim to miscarriages of justice, then my argument falters but I still say education is a human right. Well, a social right at any rate. Reading improves the mind and controlling its availability is cruel.

      Mirror searches always sounded perverse and cruel to me. It's a shame it was so common.

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    2. Simon I alluded to the practice here as heavy reading

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    3. Very interesting. Surely there should be an organisation set up to help ex-prisoners tell their stories? I know there's been quite a few successful publications like In the Footsteps of Anne, Faoi Ghlas, Cage 11, Lawrence McKeown's, Danny Morrison and Gerry Kelly's combined output but I am sure you could start a whole industry with the stories.

      Think of it, a whole flourishing set of sub-genres of conflict memoirs.

      Wait, almost forgot the government's moratorium on memoir writing which is akin to book burning in the way it hides the truth/opposing narratives Well, if you want to risk arrest go ahead but prison memoirs might escape that outcome.

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  3. Didn't Chris "Failing" Grayling when he was UK Justice Minister propose a similar pay-as-you-read policy for British prisons?

    Totally endorse what Simon and Anthony say. Access to books is basic human right which should not depend on one's state of incarceration.

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  4. Anthony

    I thought the Governor would have given you The King James Bible to read! Lol. I don't suppose the screws had heard of bibliotherapy as a rehabilitation technique!

    But in all seriousness, what you went through was psychological cruelty in the extreme with being deprived of books. How did you maintain your resiliecne through those dark times?

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  5. Barry - the only book allowed in a cell was the bible. Some read it, some smoked it, some used it as loo roll. I would use it in the winter months to place on the concrete floor when I wanted to talk out the window. It was good for the sole. That kept the feet warm. In the summer we could stand on the pipes so the heat was off so the bare feet didn't get burned. Boredom was the biggest challenge during the blanket. The drive by the British was deprive us of as much mental stimulation as possible. So we filled the day with out own methods.

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  6. Barry - the only book allowed in a cell was the bible. Some read it, some smoked it, some used it as loo roll. I would use it in the winter months to place on the concrete floor when I wanted to talk out the window. It was good for the sole. That kept the feet warm. In the summer we could stand on the pipes so the heat was off so the bare feet didn't get burned. Boredom was the biggest challenge during the blanket. The drive by the British was deprive us of as much mental stimulation as possible. So we filled the day with our own methods.

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    1. "So we filled the day with our own methods." It must have been unadulterated mental torture for Tom Clarke and co. who weren't even allowed to speak.

      I loved reading that part of Glimpses of an Irish Felon's Life when he stumbles across the stack of newspapers when working in the prison grounds.

      Spirit can often triumph over adversity.

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