There is a mystery in the shadowy world of the censorship boards of prisons across the United States. No matter what various courts have decided, these state agencies, usually staffed by people who haven’t the faintest idea of what constitutes a Constitution, routinely censor books, articles and reading material for the imprisoned on the slightest pretext.

Recently, the well-respected Prison Legal News (PLN) published a compilation of their columns, articles and writings from jailhouse lawyers, columnists, and judges in the book "The Celling of America: An Inside Look at the U.S. Prison Industry," by PLN contributor Daniel Burton-Rose, and editors Dan Pens and Paul Wright (Common Courage Press, 1998). By their very nature, many of the contributions are admittedly critical of the prison industrial complex, as they should be.

In Michigan’s Huron Valley Men’s Facility, the prison censors withheld the book, calling it a publication that "advocates violence, riots." PLN subscriber Larry Lynch’s order of the book was therefore denied. Lynch appealed the censorship throughout all levels of the Michigan Department of Corrections, but administrators upheld the censorship.

PLN and Common Courage Press have filed a class action lawsuit against the censorship, saying the First Amendment right to free speech was violated by the ban.

I invite everyone to read for themselves the book that Michigan banned. It will be utterly impossible for any readers to find, in the text of the book, anything that actually "advocates violence, riots." Most writers are knowledgeable of the plain political fact that riots are counterproductive, and serve the long-term interests of the prison administrators, rarely the prisoners. (Here I must offer an admission; I am a contributor to the book’s compilation). Some of the contributors are judges and other professionals; are they advocating "riots?"

One entry (the one by the judge) details the lies utilized by the media and attorneys-general to portray the vast majority of prisoner civil suits as frivolous. This judge, from the 2nd U.S. Court of Appeals, demonstrates by citing specific cases, that the cases were misrepresented, and were in fact, based on solid claims for relief. Would this kind of article "advocate" riots?

Some of the writers write about bogus, fraudulent usages of the misconduct system, where they are punished for daring to exercise their alleged "right" of free expression, supposedly protected by the first amendment. Is such an article "advocating violence?" Let’s let you decide, the reader. Any reading of the book will prove how ludicrous such a claim can be. Write to the: Prison Legal News, Book Dept. H., 2400 NW 80th St., #148 Seattle, WA 98117; for more information.

One may learn that it is prisons that advocate violence, for it is an institution that inculcates and teaches violence. It separates, it splits, it enrages and it embitters. It engenders violence of the psyche, which is ignorance. And that is the real objective of any state censorship: ignorance. To keep people in prison deaf, dumb, and blind to the forces that shape and create prisons.