Author Archives: Jean

The Attempt to Censor What Prisoners Read

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Just after writing my blog last week about the wonders of Changing Lives Through Literature (see "What You Need to Know About Changing Lives Through Literature") I came across an article on the Christian Science Monitor (CSM) titled "Should prison inmates be allowed to read whatever they choose?"

We know prisons only let in paperback books. At least that is what Framingham Women's Prison told me some years ago. But they also certainly don't want books critical of their practices and wouldn't house my book, Shakespeare Behind Bars in the prison library when it was first published. They said it was because it was a hardback but even in paper, I've heard it hasn't made its way there.

Husna Haq, in his CSM article mentions that recently the 1st District Court of Appeal in San Francisco overturned a previous ruling barring a prisoner from receiving a book he requested deemed "problematic" by prison officials. The book in question was The Silver Crown by Mathilde Madden "which has widely become known as 'werewolf erotica,' and was considered too sexual by corrections officers."

 

What? Corrections Officers are deciding that a book is too sexual for prisoners to read?

Get a load of this other recent news article posted in Business Insider. Called "America's Prison Guards Are The 'Ugly Stepchildren' Of The Criminal Justice System" the article reveals how guards "allegedly snuck cellphones and other contraband to Black Guerrilla Family (BGF) prison gangsters." They allowed them to do whatever they wanted apparently, and BGF leader Tavon White is accused of impregnating four guards, two of whom got tattoos with his name.

Thankfully, as Salon reported, the Court found that the prison had overstepped its bounds in the case, engaging in an “arbitrary and capricious application of the regulation.” The judge declared that " The Silver Crown did not meet the famous 'three-pronged' standard by which American courts have determined obscenity since the Supreme Court of the United States’ decision on Miller v. California in 1973."

A 2011 suit by the American Civil Liberties Union charged a South Carolina prison with denying its prisoners all reading material other than the Bible.Other cases include an Alabama prison that barred a prisoner from reading the Pulitzer Prize-winning Slavery by Another Name: The Re-Enslavement of Black Americans From the Civil War to World War II by Douglas Blackmon.

Why, because it was too controversial? That's what I was told at Framingham when I wanted to teach a June Jordan essay and direct a version of Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God. Way before Oprah produced a movie in this novel, I had planned to have many Janies and the focus on a re-creation of the trial scene. But the prison said that involving my theatre troupe in such an effort was "too racial." And I quote.

The truth is that prisons want to control behavior. They want to "reform" which usually means to turn out people who are as conformist as possible. Read, write fine. As long as they don't overstep "our boundaries."

The idea that freedom of the press or the freedom to read literature of one's choice doesn't exist for prisoners is unconstitutional. The idea that is does is illusion.

Changing Lives Through Literature

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Check out my new post on and get a good primer on this program. Here’s the intro:

“As Massachusetts begins the process of giving the most notorious Boston gangster his due, most of us aren’t thinking about the kind of lawbreakers who want a way out of the cycle of crime. But a committee met this week to expand a little-known program that does exactly that.

Trial Court Chief Justices Robert Mulligan and Paula Carey want to ensure that more opportunities exist for probationers throughout Massachusetts to become law-abiding citizens. They want the reading program Changing Lives Through Literature (CLTL) to “emerge from the shadows.” While at least 200 probationers across the state have graduated from the program this year, the judges, probation officers, and professors on the committee are seeking to increase participation and graduation numbers.”  More

Male Guards Strip Searching Women in Jail

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Not that this surprises me. I worked at Framingham Women's Prison in Massachusetts in the 1990's when male guards rounded up women in the middle of the night for an "alleged" strip-search. They were sued. The women won. But the extent of the case at the jail in Chicopee where Sheriff Michael J. Ashe is reputed to be innovative, concerned and on the side of the women is frankly appalling.

This image of a woman strip searched by a female guard via ACLU. It's humiliating enough, right?

The story broke on May 23rd on a local TV station in the western part of the state,WWLP, and was picked up the next day by the The Springfield Republican but the suit was originally filed in September 2011. At that time, Debra Baggett, a former prisoner at the Western Mass Regional Women’s Correctional Center sued on behalf of 178 women. It took a while — what's new? — but U.S. District Judge Michael A. Ponsor has finally ruled that the class action suit can go forward. 178 women, strip-searched at different times, were allegedly videotaped by a male officer during those body-cavity searches. These were women segregated from the population for different reasons such as suicide watch; the jail claimed that strip searches were necessary for safety per attorney David Milton, interviewed on the Bill Newman radio show, also out of Western Mass.

WWLP reported that Boston Civil Rights attorney Howard Friedman, colleague of Milton, said these travesties occurred between 2008 and 2010, and that "men held the camera for 71% of the videotaped strip searches." Attorney Friedman also asserted, says WWLP that after prison officials became aware of the lawsuit in 2012, the percentage of those videotaped dropped to 2% by 2012.

Where was Sheriff Ashe, the innovator during all this? One can only speculate.

These cases are so clearly an abuse of power that it is almost not worth mentioning the obvious. And yet a woman stripped naked in front of male officers should only occur in cases of emergency. Female officers should always be conducting searches. And it shouldn't take a lawsuit to change an abusive policy. Supposedly the jail now only videotapes when they feel there is a direct threat, i.e. dangerousness, but I bet they aren't letting men hold the camera now. Plus, why on earth we need videotaping of people who might commit suicide when they are being strip searched — for contraband supposedly –is beyond beyond.

In 2011, The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that cross-gender strip searches of prisoners were unconstitutional, reported in the ABA Journal of the American Bar Association. That was when a male sued because a female officer searched him.

A court is expected to rule on whether the policy that was allegedly in place at the women's correctional center was or was not constitutional. That's to happen sometime in early 2014. Let's hope the next judge does the right thing.

Crossword Puzzles Behind Bars

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Sean Dobbin, who teaches at the Community High School of Vermont in the Northeast Correctional Complex calls his class "Cruciverbalism." And yep, that really refers to crossword puzzles. But Caleb, who's been incarcerated for 10 months, says he's learned more than how to solve and create puzzles through these classes.  He's learned speaking and language skills as well as what he calls how to "be the change."  Caleb says he is also helping others by "creating a superb environment in the English language that's easy to understand."


Pictured here is one student with a crossword he is solving.

Dobbin came to this class though his love of puzzles. He says he is always solving puzzles and has created crosswords for the likes of the NYTimes, two accepted via the master, Will Shortz. He's spent much of his career teaching English and always worked with seriously at-risk or incarcerated teens. The current class has been running for 4-5 months and he has seen a significant improvement in vocabulary skills. But, most importantly, he has found a fun and inviting way into teaching language arts, keeping his students engaged and challenged.

To earn credit, he says, "a student must solve a set number of puzzles, create their own puzzles, contribute to a class puzzle that is being groomed for publication, keep a vocabulary journal, keep a parts-of-speech journal, and produce written work that is guided by 'found' knowledge from puzzles." Dobbin says that the prison has invested in a professional program, Crossword Compiler, a crossword-construction software program used by pros.

David, at 29, recently earned his high school diploma in 2012 at the Community High School and took the Cruciverbalism class "to try something new." He says the class taught him "If I am determined enough and stay focused that I can accomplish any and all goals I set for myself." David now is the librarian at the prison complex.


Pictured here, another student, working on building a crossword puzzle.

Under Vermont state law, the Vermont DOC website states that "All individuals under the age of 23, under custody of the DOC, and without high school diplomas, have a mandatory education requirement. These students are enrolled upon admission." The Community High School of Vermont is accredited through the New England Association of Schools and Colleges (NEASC).

But school behind bars can be deadly. Keeping the attention of kids is not easy and engaging them in class means helping them learn, as Caleb says, how really smart they are. David too says it well when discussing what Crosswords do for students: They "work your brain and help you learn things that you never knew before."

Dobbin feels teachers at the high school are "encouraged (and expected) to be creative with the coursework they offer." But seriously, without giving kids behind bars opportunities to shine, there will be no door like the one below –a way into, yes, but no way out of the darkness.

Theatre in an Italian Prison

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I've been interested for years in the Italian prison theatre company featured this week in The New York Times.  Since 1988, Compagnia della Fortezza, the company named after the Medici-era fortress that houses the Volterra jail where the men are imprisoned, has performed a variety of Italian spectacles and tragedies. From Alice in Wonderland, a Theatrical Essay on the End of a Civilization to Romeo and Juliet: Mercutio Does Not Want to Die, director Amando Punzo has dedicated himself to art behind bars.

This photo is one of many in the photo essay by Clara Vannuci, an Italian photographer who has documented in amazing pictures the essence of Punzo's vision.

For 21 years, working five hours a day, six days a week, Punzo has embarked on a challenging repertoire for the company, including per the NYTimes in an article they wrote in 2009,  "plays based on works by Brecht, Peter Handke, and even the tale of Pinocchio."  He says that it is not therapy that drives him but creating good theatre.

I too felt that way during the eight plays I directed behind bars. The idea was not to go after building self-esteem –although that happened — but to go after revealing the truth of the play and getting the women to be the best they could be at portraying their roles. Punzo says “It’s not about giving the inmates an outlet or a recreational break. It’s work.”  The side effect of theatre programs behind bars are self-respect, community building and a love for the stage.

The Italians love art so much, the rumor goes, that the prisons would rather risk an arrest than not show their performances to other Italians. Many shows tour and many prisoners work outside during the day. And believe it or not over half the 205 prisons in Italy have acting companies. Compagnia della Fortezza has won some of Italy’s most prestigious theatre awards and houses a gourmet restaurant where prisoners work and serve food to the public.

A 2009 show — Alice in Wonderland, a Theatrical Essay on the End of a Civilization  (photo below)— was loosely based on Lewis Carroll’s masterwork, but the text wove in soliloquies from other authors, in this case Shakespeare (predominantly Hamlet) but also Genet, Pinter, Chekhov and Heiner Müller.

While Punzo, who has an acting background, creates a new play every July, his dream is to create a stable repertory company, with a winter season and a permanent theater, which would allow him to pay the actors. Ah Italy!

Photographer Vannuci relayed in this week's article how she asked a prisoner why no one tried to escape. The response reflected how much theatre has the potential to change lives:  “Why should I run? Where would I go? Twenty years I’ve lived in prison. Now I have something to live for. Life has meaning.”