It’s incontestable to me that prisons should provide access to reading materials, but the reality is that information and literature are hard to come by inside. Based on my understanding, a number of Level II security prisons in the Michigan Department of Corrections have a library to review law material and another to check out non-legal books, but not all. 

The Charles Egeler Reception & Guidance Center where I’m currently incarcerated offers neither.

The center is a “temporary” quarantine for people coming into the Michigan Department of Corrections until they can be placed someplace permanent. Many people live here for six to eight months before being sent to a “regular” facility. During this time, we’re stuck in a 6 x 8 cell with almost nothing to do for around 22 hours a day. The only opportunities to do anything are to go to chow, callouts for specific people to do specific things, and 45 minutes of yard time every other day. Otherwise, it’s three walls and a set of bars. The monotony of this magnitude will drive almost anyone crazy.

During my time of incarceration, I’ve come across many library books that are 20-40 years old. Many of these were either donated by private nonprofits, or the Prisoner Benefit Fund, a communal savings account) purchased them. 

Instead, I have observed the state Department of Corrections use various excuses to reduce its services drastically.

In late 2020, at the height of COVID-19 lockdown, prison staff closed most general libraries, and librarians cut back on prisoners’ access to the law libraries. This was a pretty arbitrary decision, as the law library sections are often in the same room as the general library materials, and people’s chances of catching COVID-19 was the same whether they’re doing legal research or checking out non-legal books.

During the pandemic, the librarian I talked to at the Parnall Correctional Facility in Jackson, Michigan, said that he was not going to order any magazine subscriptions simply because most other facilities were no longer offering this service. No other justification seemed necessary, and he was one of the “good ones.” This was well within his purview, as Beard v. Banks, 548 U.S. 521, 540 (2006) says that prisons can deny people access to magazines, newspapers, or photographs altogether.

Elsewhere, things are similarly grim. Although state statute requires staff to provide interlibrary loans, my experience indicates that many prison librarians do not. Having access to up-to-date information is essential for us to engage with reality. We have debates on everything from religions, philosophy, and science, to movies, trading cards, and video games. However, we have almost no way of fact-checking what people say, short of having loved ones look something up on the outside, which is rarely successful. 

Reinstating the interlibrary loans and magazine subscriptions would be a start to restoring our reading access to what it once was. To make it better, the state’s Department of Corrections should make e-books available on our tablets as well. Michigan is a state that does not offer reading material on prisoners’ digital tablets. This is in spite of the fact that the availability of free reading material was one of the services JPay, a for-profit telecom company that sells services to prisons and jails, touted to justify its contract with the Michigan Department of Corrections. JPay allows incarcerated people to use tablets to read e-books, make phone calls, and read e-messages. But once the contract was signed, we never saw any e-books. Instead, my tablet is simply an expensive entertainment device. For example, tablets offer 20-plus-year-old video games for $7.99 and MP3 songs at $1.99 a pop.

The inability for us to read on tablets is particularly problematic when you consider that the state Department of Corrections limits the places prisoners and their families can purchase books from. Currently, there are five “approved vendors,” which include Amazon. On top of this, there is another unofficial layer of censorship. I have observed that mailroom staff routinely reject books purchased from designated vendors if they do not include a “gift receipt.” Since most people’s families and friends miss this arbitrary detail, the Michigan Department of Corrections rejects most books that come into prison mailrooms. 

It is possible to appeal these rejections, and I do, but only in certain instances. First, if I think I have a decent chance of winning, I will appeal. For example, when articles I wrote were published in PEN America’s yearly anthology in 2019 and 2022, mailroom staff rejected both volumes and insisted that allowing me to have these books would give me the ability to impact the atmosphere of the facility. Since getting prison authorities to reverse censorship is almost impossible, sometimes outside help is needed. Most prison advocacy organizations don’t have the capability of helping, however. Although you might eventually get the books, the frustration and confusion built into the whole process discourages most people from even trying. 

The MDOC bans books on everything from truck driving, computer programming, and even residential electrical under the guise of security. However, at the same time, the MDOC currently teaches people these very subjects. 

If anyone in society needs a better perspective on their humanity and their position in life, it’s incarcerated people. While our current location grants us the time to think and reflect, we need ready access to the proper tools to guide our thoughts. Just like anyone else in the world, we are rarely interested in technology that came out decades ago. We certainly cannot cite knowledge from outdated books that have been condemned or made passé by newer discourse. We are interested in reading information that is current and relevant, and without it, our only option for intellectual fulfillment lies in ignorant bliss when the right book could have helped us experience an enlightening epiphany. 

While the reality of these restrictions may surprise someone outside, the frustration, disappointment, and boredom we experience should not be difficult to understand. 

Nobody wants to spend countless hours staring at the wall when our days could be made more meaningful with learning and thinking. In order for carceral authorities to change these conditions, we need our advocates on the outside to raise their voices on our behalf. Something we read on a tablet could be life-altering, all we need is access.

Creative Commons License

Republish our articles for free, online or in print, under a Creative Commons license.

Daniel Pirkel was born and raised in NW Indiana. He spent his childhood playing football, riding motorcycles and gaming. Since being incarcerated 15 years ago, he has won a favorable legal decision on appeal and earned a bachelor’s degree through Calvin University (2021) in Faith & Community Leadership in Social Work. Daniel won the Honorable Mention in 2022 PEN America Prison Writing Contest for his essay, “The Unintended Consequences of Retributive Justice” and Honorable Mention in PEN’s...