誰應該決定監(jiān)獄里允許看什么書?

誰應該決定監(jiān)獄里允許看什么書?

Michael Tafolla says the books he read in prison helped him understand how he had landed there in the first place. He remembers one especially eye-opening title: Illegal: Reflections of an Undocumented Immigrant.

邁克爾·塔弗拉說，他在監(jiān)獄里讀的書幫助他理解了自己最初是如何來到這里的。他記得一個特別令人大開眼界的標題：《非法:無證移民的反思》。

"The main topic of this book is how a human being is reduced to an action that's perceived by others to be wrong," Tafolla says. "And therefore he is not a human being, but he is a walking, talking, breathing crime act."

“這本書的主要主題是一個人是如何淪落為別人認為是錯誤的行為的，” 塔弗拉說。“因此，他不是人，而是一個會走路、會說話、會呼吸的犯罪行為。”

Tafolla was released from Danville Correctional Center in 2018. Not long after, in January 2019. officials at the Illinois prison censored Illegal and about 200 other books, removing them from the library of a college-in-prison program. Officials were concerned about "racially motivated" material, according to documents obtained by Illinois Public Media.

塔弗拉于2018年從丹維爾懲教中心獲釋。不久之后，也就是2019年1月，伊利諾伊州監(jiān)獄的官員審查了非法書籍和大約200本其他書籍，將它們從一個監(jiān)獄大學項目的圖書館中移除。根據(jù)伊利諾伊州公共媒體獲得的文件，官員們對“出于種族動機”的材料感到擔憂。

Experts say this is just one example of the kind of arbitrary book censorship that incarcerated people face nationwide — censorship that can make it harder to get an education behind bars.

專家們說，這只是全國范圍內(nèi)被監(jiān)禁的人面臨的任意對書籍進行審查的一個例子，這種審查會使人們在獄中接受教育變得更加困難。

"It's so important for people who are in prison to be able to have access to materials that give them hope and a reason to want to be part of society again, to want to engage, to see the future," says Rebecca Ginsburg of the Education Justice Project. She says she was shocked and angry when she learned the books had been removed from her program's library at Danville.

教育公正項目的麗貝卡·金斯伯格說:“對于那些在監(jiān)獄里的人來說，能夠接觸到給他們帶來希望的材料是非常重要的，這些材料給了他們重新融入社會的理由，讓他們想要參與其中，看到未來。”她說，當她得知這些書被從她在丹維爾的項目圖書館拿走時，她感到震驚和憤怒。

A recent report from PEN America, a nonprofit that advocates for free expression, found that book censorship in U.S. prisons represents "the largest book ban policy in the United States." And while censorship guidelines vary in different prison systems, the restrictions "are often arbitrary, overbroad, opaque, [and] subject to little meaningful review."

倡導言論自由的非營利組織美國筆會最近發(fā)布的一份報告發(fā)現(xiàn)，美國監(jiān)獄的圖書審查制度代表著“美國最大的圖書禁令政策”。雖然審查指導方針在不同的監(jiān)獄系統(tǒng)中有所不同，但這些限制“往往是武斷的、過于寬泛的、不透明的，(而且)很少受到有意義的審查。”

In Kansas, state prisons don't allow Angie Thomas' young adult novel, The Hate U Give, or Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye — but they do allow Adolf Hitler's Mein Kampf.

在堪薩斯州，州立監(jiān)獄不允許安吉·托馬斯的青年小說《你所給予的仇恨》或托尼·莫里森的《最藍的眼睛》，但允許阿道夫·希特勒的《我的奮斗》。

Texas prisons have censored Alice Walker's The Color Purple, which won a Pulitzer Prize; New Hampshire bars Alice Sebold's The Lovely Bones; and Florida has censored multiple books about learning Arabic, Japanese and American Sign Language.

德克薩斯州監(jiān)獄審查了愛麗絲·沃克的《紫色》，該書曾獲得普利策獎;新罕布什爾州禁止愛麗絲·西博爾德的《可愛的骨頭》;佛羅里達州已經(jīng)審查了多本關(guān)于學習阿拉伯語、日語和美國手語的書籍。

A 2013 report from the RAND Corporation found that getting an education in prison decreases the likelihood someone will return after they're released.

蘭德公司2013年的一份報告發(fā)現(xiàn)，在監(jiān)獄接受教育會降低獲釋后返回的可能性。

Diana Woodside, director of policy and legislative affairs for the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections, says that of course, some reading material should be banned from prisons.

賓夕法尼亞州懲教部政策和立法事務主管戴安娜·伍德賽德表示，當然，監(jiān)獄應該禁止一些閱讀材料。

"There's a lot of how-to books and how-to articles in magazines, such as how to strangle someone with your bare hands — that was an actual article in a very popular men's magazine. ... There's also writings that are specific for inmates: how to escape from handcuffs."

“有很多入門書籍和雜志上的入門文章，比如《如何徒手勒死人》，這是一本非常受歡迎的男性雜志上的一篇真正的文章。…也有專門針對囚犯的文章《如何逃脫手銬》。”

Woodside points to two common standards for evaluating publications: "Do they pose a potential threat to the security of the operation of the prisons? Or do they contain nudity or sexually explicit materials?"

伍德賽德指出了評估出版物的兩個常見標準：“它們是否對監(jiān)獄運作的安全構(gòu)成潛在威脅?或者它們是否包含裸體或露骨的性內(nèi)容?”

Some publications clearly violate those standards — but Woodside acknowledges there's a large gray area.

一些出版物顯然違反了這些標準，但伍德賽德承認存在很大的灰色區(qū)域。

"There's a fine line between, you know, imposing our own personal judgment on the quality of the content of that book and making really sound, rational decisions to keep our facilities safe."

“你知道，在把我們個人的判斷強加給那本書的內(nèi)容質(zhì)量和做出真正充足、合理的決定以保證我們的設(shè)施安全之間，有一條微妙的界限。”

One of those gray areas is nudity. Woodside says prison officials in Pennsylvania struggle over whether to allow certain graphic novels, specifically from Japan.

其中一個灰色地帶是裸體。伍德賽德說，賓夕法尼亞州的監(jiān)獄官員正在為是否允許某些漫畫小說，特別是來自日本的漫畫小說而斗爭。