{"id":7963,"date":"2018-09-21T15:40:25","date_gmt":"2018-09-21T19:40:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/blog\/?p=7963"},"modified":"2018-09-21T15:40:25","modified_gmt":"2018-09-21T19:40:25","slug":"pennsylvania-ebooks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/blog\/2018\/09\/21\/pennsylvania-ebooks\/","title":{"rendered":"<i>Philadelphia Inquirer<\/i> exposes Pennsylvania&#8217;s complicity in cutting off incarcerated people&#8217;s access to books"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Pennsylvania prisons just <a href=\"http:\/\/www2.philly.com\/philly\/news\/books-through-bars-pennsylvania-prisons-k2-security-john-wetzel-20180913.html\">ended book donations to incarcerated people<\/a>, claiming they&#8217;ve found a new, better way to provide access to books. Their bright idea? Partnering with <a href=\"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/blog\/2017\/08\/28\/merger\/\">telecom giant GTL<\/a> to sell e-books on tablet computers.<\/p>\n<p>Prison tablets, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/blog\/2018\/07\/24\/no-cost-contract\/\">as we&#8217;ve shown<\/a>, deliver low-quality services at frequently exorbitant prices. Email on a prison tablet <a href=\"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/blog\/2017\/07\/06\/tablets\/\">requires a paid &#8220;stamp.&#8221;<\/a> If that&#8217;s an acceptable substitute for email, we wondered, what does GTL think passes for a library?<\/p>\n<p>I intended to find out, but the <i>Philadelphia Inquirer<\/i> beat me to it, with an article this morning revealing just how insufficient GTL&#8217;s book list is. Many of the most popular books among incarcerated people &#8211; including dictionaries &#8211; are missing. <a href=\"http:\/\/www2.philly.com\/philly\/news\/pennsylvania-department-corrections-books-through-bars-philly-new-jim-crow-malcolm-x-20180921.html\">Read the excellent full article here<\/a>, or my summary on Twitter:<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-lang=\"en\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Thread: Pennsylvania prisons are cutting off book donations and replacing them with e-books on tablets. Journalist <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/samanthamelamed?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">@samanthamelamed<\/a> tracked down the list of books. It\u2019s worse than you think. 1\/5<\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Prison Policy Init. (@PrisonPolicy) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/PrisonPolicy\/status\/1043181043531083776?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">September 21, 2018<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-conversation=\"none\" data-lang=\"en\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">GTL, which sells the tablets and e-books, gets a lot of its content from Project Gutenberg for free. Then it re-sells the free books for up to $12. 2\/5<a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/d3BMTNGLY4\">https:\/\/t.co\/d3BMTNGLY4<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Prison Policy Init. (@PrisonPolicy) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/PrisonPolicy\/status\/1043181044760018946?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">September 21, 2018<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-conversation=\"none\" data-lang=\"en\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">If that isn\u2019t bad enough, GTL\u2019s list excludes many of the books that incarcerated people request most often. Books that a donation program could supply. 3\/5 <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/Hozi3v9f1h\">pic.twitter.com\/Hozi3v9f1h<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Prison Policy Init. (@PrisonPolicy) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/PrisonPolicy\/status\/1043181046207004672?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">September 21, 2018<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-conversation=\"none\" data-lang=\"en\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Remember this person, who wanted a dictionary? They won\u2019t find one on GTL&#39;s e-book list. 4\/5 <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/JFRvCGv8B1\">pic.twitter.com\/JFRvCGv8B1<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Prison Policy Init. (@PrisonPolicy) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/PrisonPolicy\/status\/1043181048321007616?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">September 21, 2018<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-conversation=\"none\" data-lang=\"en\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Pennsylvania DOC says this is no big deal, because there\u2019s still the prison library. Incarcerated people take exception. 5\/5 <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/dsaJ65LVJI\">pic.twitter.com\/dsaJ65LVJI<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Prison Policy Init. (@PrisonPolicy) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/PrisonPolicy\/status\/1043181050728521730?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">September 21, 2018<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-conversation=\"none\" data-lang=\"en\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">The only question left by the <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/PhillyInquirer?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">@PhillyInquirer<\/a> article is whether the DOC&#39;s decision was born of malice or negligence. Given the timing and GTL&#39;s history, both are possible explanations.<\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Prison Policy Init. (@PrisonPolicy) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/PrisonPolicy\/status\/1043220925100032001?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">September 21, 2018<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>Prison tablets are touted as bringing the outside world to incarcerated people, but all they seem to be doing is bringing a new, captive market to telecom giants. Pennsylvania should allow groups that donate books &#8211; groups that walk these companies&#8217; talk &#8211; to keep doing their valuable work.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Pennsylvania DOC introduces a telecom company to a large, captive market for e-books.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"coauthors":[46],"class_list":["post-7963","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7963","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7963"}],"version-history":[{"count":41,"href":"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7963\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10285,"href":"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7963\/revisions\/10285"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7963"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7963"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7963"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=7963"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}