10-10 UPDATE: Wisconsin’s Department of Corrections responded to a request for information on why it is no longer accepting donated used books for prisons.
The DOC states its policy balances the interest in promoting reading and education with the need to prevent drugs from entering our prisons. The DOC says it strikes that balance by allowing new books to be shipped to persons in its care, but prohibiting the shipment of used books.
The DOC says since 2019, there have been 214 incidents of drugs being found on paper including in books and letters shipped to DOC facilities.
The agency says the incidents include bad actors sending books with drugs as if they are coming from trusted vendors like advocacy groups, state agencies, and attorneys.
The DOC says it continues to talk with a group out of Madison that has been donating used books to prisons for almost two decades. It hopes to come to an agreement to help fulfill the reading requests of the inmates safely.
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GREEN BAY, WI (WTAQ-WLUK) – Donated or used books are no longer being accepted at Wisconsin prisons.
The state claims it’s because people are using books to get drugs into the prisons. However, groups that have spent years collecting books for prisoners say the new policy doesn’t make sense.
Out of her Fox Valley home, Fran Nelson has helped get about 3,500 used books into the hands of inmates inside Wisconsin prisons.
“I’m just passionate about people who are stuck in a place with nothing to do,” said Nelson. “The opportunity there to read and learn and grow is just built right into the whole system.”
She has about 300 books right now ready to donate, but doesn’t know what she will do with them after prison librarians informed her they can no longer accept donated or used books.
“I think it stinks,” said Nelson. “The library is not the source of drugs that come in with our used books. No one has suggested it is.”
FOX 11 reached out to the Department of Corrections for an interview or statement about the new policy. It has not replied to our emails.
However, Wisconsin Books to Prisoners, a group out of Madison forwarded an email to FOX 11 it received in August from Sarah Cooper, the administrator of the DOC’s Division of Adult Institutions.
“Unfortunately, those who wish to send drugs into the prisons do so under the guise of legitimate agencies, organizations and even legal entities,” writes Cooper in the email. “ To provide some examples, there have been many instances of drugs coming in via mail (and publications/books) which appear to be sent from the Child Support Agency, the IRS, the State Public Defender’s Office, the Department of Justice and individual attorneys. In reality, the mail pieces are not from those agencies, but from the bad actors who imitate them to send the drugs in.”
Cooper also says the DOC’s concern is not with Wisconsin Books to Prisoners, but with “those who would impersonate the organization for nefarious means.”
“The Books to Prisoners has said they’re willing when they mail the books to send the tracking right with it so they can track that it did come from them,” said Nelson. “So far those alternatives, and I think there were a number of them, haven’t been accepted.”
The American Civil Liberties Union is now getting involved. The Wisconsin chapter sent FOX 11 a statement about the new policy.
People in prisons already have extremely limited access to educational materials, and it is incredibly harmful to further limit their basic right to information through indiscriminate mail policies. Imposing a prohibition on book donations to prison libraries is draconian and counterproductive, and it fails to address the broader issue of how drugs enter facilities, which are more likely to come through other points of entry. Studies have shown that allowing access to books in prison lowers reoffense rates, enhancing public safety.
The ACLU of Wisconsin is currently investigating this matter and evaluating how this unjust and unnecessary policy can be combated.
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