Arkansas inmates restricted from receiving physical books, other media directly | Hacker News Reader

Arkansas inmates restricted from receiving physical books, other media directly

arkansasadvocate.com

52 pointshn_acker38 comments

Compared to mail, prison staff might be a much more common source of contraband in prisons [1].

Reading can reduce recidivism [2]. Taking inspiration from John F. Kennedy [3], I'd say that those who make prison rehabilitation impossible will make preventable recidivism inevitable.

[1] https://www.themarshallproject.org/2023/10/18/prison-drugs-o...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Changing_Lives_Through_Literat...

[3] https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/address-the-first-...

For the sake of comparison, see Brazil’s Bolsonaro finds novel way to reduce 27-year sentence: reading books. [1]

[1]: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/jan/16/brazil-jair-bo...

"The Alabama Solution" (nominated for best documentary, 2025) is a mind-blowing documentary about the prison system. Indeed, everything gets through prison guards. In that case, the problem was that inmates were self-educating in law, and figured out that their highest leverage is financial and organized strikes targeting free revenue from almost-unpaid labor.

So it makes sense, to avoid these "problems" by restricting books, given that the revenue from contraband with drugs and everything else continues to work through prison guards.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Alabama_Solution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_Alabama_Movement

The full title is:

> Arkansas inmates restricted from receiving physical books, other media directly under new policy

The article is from December 2025, and the policy takes effect on February 1, 2026.

What about books sent directly from a book store? I didn't see that mentioned in the article and that used to be the way to send a book to an inmate. (I've known inmates in a few states.) Books could be sent directly from say Amazon; but, not from an individual. (The article's "Joe Blow off the street.")

> What about books sent directly from a book store?

That was THE way for individuals to send a book via mail to an inmate, and starting February 1st that will no longer be an available option [1]:

> Before the new policy, employees of the Department of Corrections inspected and decided, on a case-by-case basis, whether materials could be passed to those on the inside. Materials to incarcerated people were already limited to those sent directly from publishers or approved vendors, with bans on materials sent from individuals and unapproved organizations. Now, materials are allowed into the system only through requested donations to prison libraries and/or prison chaplains.

When I posted TFA, the Arkansas Division of Correction page about "Mail and Money" for inmates [2] had a line about the February 1st ban on mailed books etc. The line did not mention specific sources of mail, so I interpreted it as categorically applying to mailed books etc. from all sources (including bookstores) addressed to individual inmates. I'm kicking myself for not archiving the page when I posted TFA, because just now (a day and some hours later) I checked the page and the line had been deleted [3], except for a sloppily-left-in space right before "No food or care packages may be mailed to an inmate." The now-deleted line seems to have been added after January 12, because a Wayback Machine archive on January 12 says that "All books, magazines, newspapers and catalogs must be mailed directly from the publisher, bookstore, educational institution, or recognized commercial or charitable outlet." [4] (That is, the page previously mentioned specific sources of mail.)

[1] https://bookriot.com/arkansas-prison-book-ban/

[2] https://doc.arkansas.gov/correction/inmates/mail-and-money/

[3] https://archive.ph/qE7Zk

[4] https://web.archive.org/web/20260112235838/https://doc.arkan...

Seems like an online book wishlist, and order for inmate interface, from trusted sellers would benefit everyone.

Not saying that would not reduce some legitimate book gifts, but adding every way possible for books to reach inmates is a good policy for any prison, the inmate and rehabilitation, regardless of the drug problem.

> in order to tamp down on contraband being smuggled into prisons.

You can thumb flip through 300 pages in under a second to see that there is nothing in there.

It is bonded to the paper. The paper is soaked in liquid drugs and then left to dry. The books are then shipped to the jails. Once there, the pages are then torn out and eaten or smoked.

https://duckduckgo.com/?q=bug+pesticide+paper+prison

https://www.goerie.com/story/news/crime/2024/11/27/inmate-ma...

https://filtermag.org/drug-strips-prisons-jails-research/

Pretty much a textbook use case for surface drug test kits.

You'd need a test for every random chemical someone can use to get high. This story piqued my interest a few years ago because I didn't realize people got high off bug spray.

I think the best alternative solution is to get better e-books on the tablets the prisons already have, as airstrike said.

Also much easier to extract money that way when the ebook can’t be transferred whereas a book can be traded freely once it’s in the prison system.

A textbook case, you say?

They still have access to the prison library. It's only about receiving direct books and magazines.

> Critics say such restrictions, however, severely limit access for people in prison to reading materials since the offerings in prison libraries and on prison-issued tablets can be limited or outdated.

Sounds like there's a very easy solution to the problem

Yeah. Restoring their rights.

Their rights to an extremely generous and updated tablet based ebook selection. The ROI on that providing that would be very good for governments, you would assume. Recidivism down. Libraries could do other things with the book space.

The great thing about prison tablets is that they are cheap and offer a low-cost selection of reading materials, with no incentive to have some scummy third party company in the loop to profit off their monopoly.

The first thing prisoners will do is destroy the tablet. I'm okay with both restricting prisoners' abilities to get direct mail, and I'm okay with allowing subscriptions go directly to the prison library. I am not inclined to want to give prisoners more privileges and I am inclined to remove as many privileges as possible, especially for first time offenders so that they realize that the path they are on is the wrong one.

I’m not ok with this

As in completing the abolition of slavery.

I believe that criminals should have a terrible experience in jail, so that they don't want to return again. I don't think it should be comfortable at all.

This is such a garbage take because research unanimously shows that terrible imprisonment would only increase recidivism rather than reduce it.

You can continue to be wrong, or you can do even minimal research and revisit your biases. Choose.

Have you ever lost library materials? They don’t let you replace it from just any ol' source.

Why not let inmates’ families buy books from an approved vendor?

Doesn't matter: the types of people criticizing such a decision happens to also be the type of people who have zero compassion for the victims of crime. "Mercy to the guilty is cruelty to the innocent" and all that comes to mind.

Rehabilitation at all cost / dubious redemption is the subject of the satire movie "A clockwork orange".

HN shall upload and upvotes articles like these, implying inmates are suffering horrible injustice in red states. But same HN shall not upvote any article about a blonde woman ukrainian refugee getting slaughtered in the neck and dying while hearing the last words "take that white girl".

Poor criminal: he now has to go the prison's library to read and cannot receive books and magazines directly.

Such injustice.

One more reason to complete the abolition of slavery, such that prisoners are included as free citizens even if incarcerated.

This is a pretty common restriction.

This restriction appears to go beyond most other state level policies in the US.

> This is the strictest ban on sending reading material to prisons in the country. Advocates worry this will launch similar efforts nationwide. [0]

[0] https://bookriot.com/arkansas-prison-book-ban/

“Advocates worry”

What are we talking about here? Who are these advocates and why should I listen to their worries over prison personnel?

Treating prisoners humanely and preparing them to resume a productive life after prison helps us all.

Prison personnel are often misaligned when it comes to the wellbeing of their inmates.

Although that doesn't make it good.

I live in Arkansas, and both know people have been in the state prison system and have family that work in it.

This didn't come out of nowhere. Book and letters have both been used in the past to smuggle in drugs - including soaking the paper in liquids and then extracting them or using them directly inside.

It sounds like this prevents books from being sent to prisoners no matter who the sender is.

In California you are not allowed to mail books directly to prisoners, but you can order books from Amazon (or a few other large sellers) for shipment to the prisoner. They figure a shipment directly from those places should be contraband free. Hopefully they have some kind of anti-spoofing scheme.

I think the CA policy is pretty common, so Arkansas must be going further.

If you can process drugs and get high in prison then you're not actually in any form of custody. You're just left to your own devices in an unsupervised locked box. It's not hard to figure out why our recidivism rate is so embarrassing.

Anyways, I'm sure this will /completely/ prevent drugs from getting in, so I guess that justifies the destruction of prisoner rights?

Maybe the specific solvent liquids are more of the problem there than the books.

Likely water.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com