Censorship Survey Results

2025 Censorship Update - Survey Results

Do you use a tablet? If so, how do you feel about the options for reading material available on it? What companies provide services on it? What services do they offer?

Yes: 66%     No: 34%
"Yes. Poor reading material; childish"
IL/Wicc
"No. N/A"
NBCI
"Yes. The only options are books that the copy rights have expired on and most are from the 1800's. GTL provides the services, free out-dated books, phone."
Indiana/ IYC
"No. We are supposed to get them on 3-20-23"
IN 46168
"Yes. The reading materials are very restricted. The company is Edovo. The services offered are educational, movies, games, digital radio for recreational. There is also a phone system that sucks."
CCDOC/IL
"Yes. Only magazines, games, and music."
llinois, USP-Marion
"Yes. The reading material is old but I enjoy reading some of it for example Booker T Washington which I finished ready today. GTL provides the servcies. They offer games and streaming for music and audio books which are updated I believe."
Westville Correctional Facility
"Yes. Its about as and restricted overall as can be"
Pinckneyuine
"Yes. They have books on it. The good ones have to pay for. The free ones are horrible selection."
Ind, New Castle
"No. They are useless for education. Only have games, movies, and music. I'll not waste my money on that trash."
USP Marion
"Yes. Not enough recourses."
Cook County Jail
"N/A. Music, movie, podcast, and gaming apps that Global Telecommnications Link (GTL) is "Price Gouging" inmates and their families to purchase the apps."
Westville Correctional Facility
"Yes. The offers are controlled, but if im not mistaken we can download books to the tablet, but I am old fashion."
USP-Beaumont
"Yes. Guttenburg project books, through ViaPath (GTL). But thare are no page numbers on the ebooks. That is annoying for a plethora of reasons."
IL Menard Doc
"Yes. I love it because we can't go to the library to get books anymore and they keep taking the books that the book clubs keep sending me. GTL"
Miami Corr Fac Indiana
"No. Indigent cannot afford one $111.00. Some $6,000 in bogus debits to my account by federal courts."
USP-Coleman I
"No. They were just introduced and they are loaded with what I see as insane games so as to occupy ones time. Mindless stuff it seems."
Elkton FCI
"N/A. If I had one, but GTL wants me to pay for a replacement when the C.O's allowed offenders to steal mine."
Westville Correctional Facility
"Yes. The reading material on our tablets are from the Mid-50's and back. All outdated materials. GTL is the service provider and it is no good."
Pinckneyville Correctional Center
"Yes. The options for reading material on our tablets is outdated. The tablet only has books that are public domain, most of the books refer to Black Americans as negro or colored. They company that provides service on our tablets is GTL and we get the bare minimum. All we have is a lot of censored music, movies, and books. They also censor our messages."
Menard CC IL
"No. "
CCDOC
"Yes. The facility just started selling "Keefe Score 7c" tablets in January. It has no educational or reading material available. You can only purchase games or movies."
Federal Satellite Low Elkton
"Yes. It's only been available a couple of months, still getting familier. It's GTL."
Salinas Valley State Prison
"Yes. They have no reading material on them. Only games, music, and movies to rent. Tables $123.00. Games $2-3 each. Songs about $2 each. Movies about $4.00 and can watch once."
Federal Corr Inst. Perkin, IL
"No. Can't access the internet."
Pinckneyville Prison Facility
"Yes. The book list needs updated."
Big Muddy River CC IL
"Yes. Securius/JPay, they do not provide reading material other then our law library."
North Dakota State Penitentiary
"Yes. GTL. Streaming music, movies, podcast, games, books from 1800."
Big Muddy River CC IL
"Yes. It really sucks. Every book is older then 100 years. GTL - they offer games - music - movies - e-mail."
Big Muddy River CC IL
"Yes. It's trash. All old British shit. Company is GTL."
Wabash Valley Correctional Facility, IN
"No. "
N/A
"Yes. I am only allowed to watch movies that is a repeat of what they showed us, but now we rent them, not keep them. I dont like that offer, so I am attempting to play some games, which I never played as a kid."
N/A
"Yes. GTL provide reading materials on the tablet. It's just not like having a copy of the book in your hand."
Pinckneyville Corr. Ctr.
"Yes. GTL . None, all books removed."
Centralia corrections
"Yes. I feel the options are old books. Our tablet is GTL."
Indiana/ISF
"Yes. GTL, public access books but no new titles."
I.S.P
"No. Material available is laughable. No ebooks or podcasts available"
FCI Pekin
"Yes. Books there are all from the 1800s not a lot of updated reading materials at all! None!"
WIDOC Taycheedah
"Yes. I feel like reading options are very limited, I don't know the company"
WI Oshkosh
"Yes. Keefe SCORE: books on the tablet are severely dated and the subjects are often useless or do not apply to most."
WI Stanley Correctional
"Yes. Yes, WIDOC uses Access Tablets (I have a SCORE 7). The only reading material available is Project Gutenberg Free Library. There are obivous issues with copyright free material mostly from the late 1800s and early 1900s. About a year ago they updated it and dozens of books are now "prohibited", and if you had them they were removed from your app. It doesn't state why they're now prohibited. Some were antrhopology books that had nude images in them, but nudity in anthropoligy materials is protected. Other bans are even more baffling. Since I can still see a list of the banned books I had downloaded, I'll list them.
"100 New Yorkers of the 1970s" ( Max Millard),
"Abducted to Oz" (Chris Dulabone),
"Bad Medicine" (Robert Sheck),
"Booknology: The eBook (1971-2010) - Marie Lebert,
"Castes and Tribes of Southern India" - all volumes by Edgard Thurs.
"Dorothy's Mystical Adventures in Oz" - Robert J. Evans, "Franz Haydn's 104th Symphony" MIDI file (not enabled in the first place).
"FreeChildrenStories.com Collection" - Daniel Errica,
"Identity" Zoe Blade,
"In het Gerwoud bij de Kannibalen op de Niewwe Hebriden De Aarde en haar Volken" (1918 & 1917) - Felix Speiser,
"Java: Fact and Fancies" - Augusta de Wit, "Krean-English Dictionary" - Leon Kuperman,
"L'ait roman dans le Sud Manchi Album" - Marie Lebert,
"Le droid de Lire" - Richard Stallman,
"Less Than Human" - Zoe Blade,
"Moral Deliberations in Modern Cinema" - Samuel Vaknin,
"Mr. Honey's Beginner Dictionary (English-German)" - Winfried Honig,
"Narcissistic and Psychopathic Leaders" - Samuel Vaknin,
"Physiology: The Science of the Body" - Ernest G Martin,
"Printcrime" - Cory Doctorow, "Project Gutenberg (1971-2009) - Marie Lebert,
"Return to Pleasure Island" - Cory Doctorow,
"Romanesque Art in Southern Manch Album" - Marie Lebert,
"Sequentia Problem Solving" - Fredric B Lozo,
"Sexuale Zeden in Woard en Beeld Lief de en Zinnelijhe" - D. Ph van Vloten Elderick,
"Symphony No. 5 in C Minor Opus 67" - - Beethoven
"The Complete Works of William Shakespeare" - Shakespeare
"The Forest Monster of Oz" - Robert J Evans,
"The Gutenberg Webster's Unabridged Dictionary" - Naoh Webster
"The Mootooth" - Christopher Leadem,
"The Public Domain: Enclosing the Commons of the Mind" - James Boyle,
"Wake (first 25 words)" - Robert J Sawyer
"Watch (First 25k) words" - Robert J Sawyer,
"White Shadows in the South Seas" - Frederick O'Brien

Another thing with the Project Gutenberg library is many books that are supposed to have images don't. (you can still see list of images in the table of contents or 'click here to view full size' links), and the books that do have images don't have full size images, only low resolution thumbnails.

There's a podcast app with about a dozen podcasts all from NPR, ESPN, or BBC, $2 per month subscriptions, $8/month music app. About 3 dozen games, mostly incredible shallow mobile games priced at $3. Two of the recent new games, "Arch Knight" and "Budding Hero", were released with major bugs rendering them unplayable past a certain point. The "Andor's Trail" ahd 2 quests removed for "penological interests", which makes no real sense. In one you drug a jail guard and in the other you clear a prison taken over by demonic monsters and zombies. The game takes place in a medieval fantasy land. Keep in mind this is the same game where you play a child who joins a thieves guild, you steal and rob a number of people, you either extort or kidnap a woman for random, you could choose to murder several people, and various other 'evil' acts. But somehow roofying a guard to help a petty thief escape is too much. There's a movie app, all tame PG-13 content, and they recently increased the price of "blockbusters" to $4. The pricing seems arbitrary. There are 10 year old flops priced at $4, but recent winners and nominees at $3. Also the rentals only last 48 hours and have a play time limit so you can't watch it more than once all the way through.

There's a Corrlinks messaging app and an FM radio app, clock and calculator. There's no legal resources unlike many states, and there's no way to save text. The messaging app doesn't have a draft function and they've eliminated all exploits inmates use to save large amounts of text.

The tablet vendor contract is up soon and everyone (Including DOC staff) is fairly sure Access will lose the contract in 2024. It's likely why they've switched music from a purchase model to subscription (lawsuits in other states keep upholding tablet vendors must reimburse inmates for songs/games they've bought while the vendor loses the contract), have stopped adding 2-3 games every quarter, and jacked up the movie rental prices. They know they're going to lose the contract too and are trying to squeeze all the non-refundable money out of us as possible."
WIDOC Waupun
"Yes. It's all movies and games, no reading materials at all, and the movies are expensive."
MCC Chicago
"Yes. Aweful. Most books are from the 1800s. No law books to be found. Lexis Nexis is the only good service and it's free for now."
Indiana Pendleton
"Yes. Negative: our ebook function provides literature only authored 70+ years or more. PResumably, this is in respect to copyright/royalties. Positives: our audiobook function provides many classical authors that would otherwise seem a droning chore to read."
Indiana, Westville
"Yes. No tablet based reading material yet."
FCI Butner
"No. They are available for $123. There is NO reading material on them. Extremely expensive movies ($5) games and music only."
USP Marion
"Yes. The reading materials are hundreds of years old."
WI/JCI
"Yes. There is no educational material or books allowed on the tablet, but wouldn't you know it, plenty of mindless games and movies"
FCI Petersburg
"Yes. Awesomeness. "Keefe" is the one we buy our tablet from. "The Project Gutenberg" ebooks is who does ALL our books on tablet, they are awesome"
WIDOC
"Yes. Ugh, the books available on the tablet are at least 100 years old. It is utter crap. Even then it is NOT uypdated, and certain things are restricted (photos, history, etc)"
NCCF