Facing pressure from Republican legislators, the Illinois Department of Corrections (IDOC) is considering draconian new restrictions on incoming mail and books, including banning all mail pending a transition to controversial privatized mail digitization services. We are organizing to stop this egregious censorship attempt that undermines education, rehabilitation and community connection. To the IDOC and the IL general assembly: do not ban people from accessing physical letters and books through the mail, do not concede to easily disproved right-wing drug war copaganda—invest in resources, not restrictions!
Read our Op ed in South Side Weekly October 8: “IDOC Shouldn’t Ban Mail and Books in Prisons”
Illinois:
- ActionNetwork: Tell Your Legislators to Oppose Mail Scanning in the IDOC!
- Full Toolkit (info, links, call script, Google Doc)
- Restore Justice’s article opposing Mail Bans and research on Mail Scanning
- Video of November 11 Workshop on IDOC Mail Ban (youtube) with MAMAS, Restore Justice and Midwest Books to Prisoners
Articles:
- The Lingering Mail Banning Threat At CCJ: A Predatory Tool Of Surveillance and Profit that Must Be Stopped
- This Technology Was Supposed to Help People in Prison. It’s Backfiring in a Big Way
- Mail scanning: A harsh and exploitative new trend in prisons
- PrisonBannedBooksWeek.org
Zines:
- Zine: End Book Bans and Mail Censorship at Cook County Jail! (web readable) (imposed for print)
- Zine: Circumventing Prison Tech Censorship (web readable) (imposed for print)
- Zine: Campaign Against Prison Censorship and Book Banning (web readable) (imposed for print)
- Zine: Midwest Books to Prisoners Community Zine 2023 (censorship survey) (web readable) (imposed for print)
- Zine: Don’t Step Back, Fight Back! by Lorenzo Kom’boa Ervin (web readable) (imposed for print)
