Incarcerated Pennsylvanians now have to pay $150 to read

Even beyond that, all mail (excluding legal communications, e.g. from a lawyer) is scanned and delivered via tablet for free. So, just mail desired books. The USPS has a discount rate for books anyway.

This is a serious, and typical, omission on WP's part.

I am a Pennsylvanian (or rather, was, and my family still is) and we don't have some magical red phone to our various governing bodies. This is not just PA. This is broadly countrywide, an eroding of civil liberties, often with a disproportionate focus on the incarcerated, and a pivot of govt from serving a wider breadth of the electorate towards special interests. Recall the comparatively recent rollback of private prison legislation and how their stock bounced? It's very clear where the incentives and accountability lies for the govt. decisions we're seeing, and it's not in the hands of your average voter.

To not just have this be a cynical "there's nothing to do give up," take this as, "this is a much broader problem than PA, fight the good fight, get people angry/willing to go to bat even if it inconveniences them, don't allow the excuse of "they deserved it" (incarcerated), make your elected officials accountable (even if only through social pressures and stigmas), and spread the message." This is one tiny battle in a war that I worry we're losing ground in.