Quote:
Originally Posted by pwalker8
Yes, many prisons have a formal library and yes, individual prisoners can get special books if they show they are trust worthy and have a need. How things are handled at maximum security prisons and how they are handled at lesser security prisons are rather different, of course.
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That is what I thought likely.
Therefore the claims in the article that only possession of a tablet and purchase of eBooks from "a private company" will give inmates access to books is just a beat-up then. Perhaps a more rewarding and interesting article would have been about the adequacy or not of the books available in US prison libraries (and in particular Pennsylvanian ones), whether sufficient or not and range of titles.
I only know the size of one prison library here and it has around 18,000 books for a male prison population of approx. 600 inmates, which seems not too shabby on the face of it. The big majority of prisoners borrow at least fortnightly and around half at least weekly so, on the face of it, the books held are likely popular (and puts a lie to the claims of some that prison inmates are mostly illiterate - the prison referred to is both medium and maximum security, so a cross section).
I would be surprised if US prison libraries were significantly worse off, but I have no information.