A biweekly newsletter about the future of postsecondary education in prisons. Written by Open Campus national reporter Charlotte West.

Short on time? Here are the highlights:

• Last month, the Wisconsin Corrections Department informed the nonprofit Wisconsin Books to Prisoners that the organization would no longer be able to send books to incarcerated individuals, citing “the ongoing challenge of illicit substances coming into the prisons via the mail.” 

• Charlotte West collaborated with Lauren Frost, the lead producer of WBEZ’s Prisoncast!, on this piece featuring reflections from currently and formerly incarcerated men at Stateville, a decrepit, 100-year-old prison outside of Chicago that is slated to be closed by the end of the month. 

• Open Campus is partnering with educational technology providers to expand access to this newsletter for thousands of incarcerated readers across the country.

• Please share our new guides on credit transfer and how to request educational transcripts with your incarcerated students. You can also find our May/June print edition here. 

• ICYMI: We looked at censorship and contraband art in prison arts programs. Also don’t miss Juan Hernandez’s illustrations about higher education inside, including a piece that was originally destroyed by mailroom censors. 

Wisconsin prison officials ban donated books, citing the “ongoing challenge of illicit substances” coming in via mail

The Wisconsin Department of Corrections has barred the nonprofit Wisconsin Books to Prisoners from sending books inside correctional facilities, citing “the ongoing challenge of illicit substances coming into the prisons via the mail.” 

The department had no concern with Wisconsin Books to Prisoners, according to an email sent to the group by Sarah Cooper, administrator in the Division of Adult Institutions, on August 16. 

The decision was made due to those who would impersonate the organization “for nefarious means,” Cooper wrote. There had been several examples of drugs coming in via mail and publications that appear to be sent from legitimate organizations and agencies such as the IRS, the state public defender’s office, the Department of Justice and individual attorneys. 

Cooper wrote that the decision was not singling out Books to Prisoners but was “part of a full, broad and comprehensive strategy to reduce drugs and save lives.”

The volunteer-run Wisconsin Books to Prisoners has sent more than 70,000 books to incarcerated individuals in Wisconsin since it was founded in 2006, according to its website. Dozens of similar prison books programs around the country fill an important void in giving incarcerated people access to educational material and other information, advocates say. 

“Extensive research has shown that reading significantly contributes to safety and reduces recidivism.The decision to bar [us] from sending books unnecessarily restricts incarcerated peoples’ access to valuable educational resources, particularly when many facilities suffer from underfunded, outdated, or non-existent library services,” the Wisconsin nonprofit wrote in a statement on its website. 

The importance of safety

The Wisconsin Department of Corrections recognizes the importance of reading in rehabilitation, but its primary responsibility is safety, Beth Hardtke, director of communications, wrote in an email to Open Campus. 

“Drugs smuggled into DOC facilities pose a clear risk to the lives and health of those in our institutions,” Hardtke wrote. “Unfortunately, bad actors — in Wisconsin and elsewhere — have exploited otherwise positive programs that rely upon donations from the general public and have historically been used to support individuals in correctional settings.”

Hardtke noted that donated books have been among materials that have tested positive for drugs.  

She wrote that the department is hopeful that the agency can work with the nonprofit to “come to an agreement to help us fulfill the reading requests of those in our care and do so safely.” 

After receiving Cooper’s email in August, Wisconsin Books to Prisoners asked Cooper if they could send a USPS tracking number for every package of books that they ship. The organization has not yet received a response to that proposal, organization spokesperson Camy Matthay wrote in an email to Open Campus. 

Wisconsin Books to Prisoners stated that it “is pursuing all legal options in order to address this censorship.”

Hardtke noted that incarcerated individuals have access to books through libraries and its partnerships with colleges and other educational programs that bring in textbooks and other reading materials. 

The department is also currently adopting new electronic tablets that will give people access to e-books. In June, Wisconsin prisoners filed a class action suit against the corrections department alleging that they lost millions of dollars of digital music, books, games and movies they had purchased when the agency switched to the new tablet company.

Friends and family can still purchase books directly from bookstores which can send the books to incarcerated individuals’ facilities, Hardtke wrote. 

Most prisons have some kind of library and some e-books are available on tablets, but incarcerated people report that the texts are outdated or they have limited access to them. Many of the free books offered on tablets are from Project Gutenburg, an online repository of more than 70,000 public domain texts. Many of those publications are from the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with titles such as A Concise Anglo-Saxon Dictionary For the Use of Students, published in 1894.

New procedures for mail 

In September, the Wisconsin corrections department also implemented new procedures for handling legal mail, Hardtke wrote. Legal mail will be opened by staff in the presence of incarcerated individuals and duplicated on special copiers with enhanced security settings that disable the ability to store digital files. 

Non-legal mail in Wisconsin and other states has been scanned and printed for several years. As of 2022, at least 14 states scanned mail, including North Carolina, Iowa, Florida, and Pennsylvania.

The Wisconsin corrections department began requiring all incoming personal mail to be sent to TextBehind, a third-party vendor that scans mail and sends copies back to facilities, at the end of 2021. The department cited an increase in drug incidents related to synthetic cannabinoids that were soaked or sprayed on paper as a reason for the decision.

The corrections department reported a 60% decrease in total drug incidents at adult facilities between November 2021 and February 2022, the months after the scanning requirement went into effect. The agency also saw a decrease in overdoses requiring transport to a medical facility.

Jennifer Carroll, an expert in drug use and public health and former science to action coordinator for the CDC Foundation’s Overdose Response Strategy program, told The Marshall Project in 2023 that mail policies restricting access to books aren't effective at curbing drug overdoses. 

Rules around reading material coming into Wisconsin prisons have become increasingly restrictive over the last several months. Wisconsin Books to Prisoners has only been allowed to send in new books since January 2024, when the organization was notified that the department was banning used books. 

In 2019, Washington State prisons implemented a similar ban on used books from nonprofit groups, citing an increase in contraband coming into facilities. But corrections officials in that state quickly reversed that ban after an outcry from the Seattle-based Books to Prisoners and reporting by the Seattle Times that showed that a majority of the incidents cited by the department had nothing to do with books. 

The Wisconsin corrections department did not respond to a request for the number of drug-related incidents from bad actors impersonating legitimate organizations by the time of publishing. 

Related coverage:

• The power of a single book

Memories from Stateville

After nearly a century in operation, this month marks the end for one of Illinois’ most notorious prisons: Stateville Correctional Center, about 45 minutes outside of Chicago.

A federal judge has ordered most men incarcerated there to be moved out by Sept. 30, citing the dangers posed by buildings that are literally falling apart. At the same time, its proximity to Chicago means it’s had some of the richest educational and cultural programming in the state prison system. But the judge’s order has meant abrupt transfers for the men incarcerated there, throwing the future of that intellectual community into question as the state seeks to build a new prison on the site in the coming years.

WBEZ and Open Campus asked men currently and formerly incarcerated at Stateville for their thoughts on the closure. Below are excerpts from their emails or from interviews, which have been edited for clarity and brevity.

Benard McKinley, 39

Jamal Bakr, 40

Read more individual stories here from our local newsroom partner WBEZ Chicago. 

Related coverage: 

• What will the Stateville shutdown mean for higher education behind bars?

• Abrupt transfers for Stateville prisoners begin as officials rush to comply with a federal court ruling

News and views

• The Federal Bureau of Prisons announced the first college program at a federal facility to be approved by the Education Department to use Pell Grants for incarcerated students. Illinois Central College will offer a program at Federal Correctional Institution Pekin. 

• A group of incarcerated journalists at the U.S. Penitentiary Atlanta recently launched the first issue of the Atlantian Revival, which will be published quarterly. The publication republished our March 2024 story on the end of Georgia State University’s prison education program. Sonny Cochran wrote a follow-up article, noting, “People drop out of college all the time. No big deal. But what if the college drops out on you? That is what happened here at USP Atlanta.”

• A group of 112 nonprofit, advocacy and other organizations wrote a letter to U.S. Education Secretary Miguel Cardona on Thursday urging the Education Department to extend two programs that have offered relief to student loan borrowers: the 12-month “on-ramp” protections, which allowed borrowers to miss monthly payments without being considered delinquent or placed in default; and “Fresh Start,” which allowed a one-time opportunity for borrowers in default to bring their loans back into good standing. Both programs currently expire Sept. 30. Open Campus has previously reported on the challenges that incarcerated borrowers faced with defaulted loans, including accessing Pell Grants. Also check out our guide to managing defaulted loans for incarcerated borrowers. 

Let’s connect

Please connect if you have story ideas or just want to share your experience with prison education programs as a student or educator. You can always reach me at [email protected] or on Twitter, LinkedIn, or Instagram. To reach me via snail mail, you can write to: Open Campus, 2460 17th Avenue #1015, Santa Cruz, CA 95062.

We know that not everyone has access to email, so if you’d like to have a print copy College Inside sent to an incarcerated friend or family member, you can sign them up here. We also publish the PDFs of our print newsletter on the Open Campus website.

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