The ACLU has accused New Jersey prisons of violating the Constitution, claiming that the correction system’s ban on “The New Jim Crow” infringes on inmates’ First Amendment rights, according to a Monday letter.
Michelle Alexander’s “The New Jim Crow” lays out an argument claiming black people are held down and prevented from participating in society by the justice system. The ACLU filed records requests and discovered that several prisons included the book on informal lists of banned literature. The ACLU argues that in banning the book, N.J. prisons are engaging in censorship that is totally unrelated to the safety and security of its facilities, NJ.com reported Monday.
“It is one thing to prevent incarcerated people from reading how-to manuals about lock-picking,” the letter read. “It is something altogether different to deny people access to a book that ‘offers a timely and original framework for understanding mass incarceration.'”
N.J. is the only state known to have banned the book. The ACLU points out that even Texas, which maintains a list of roughly 10,000 banned works, went out of its way to affirmatively approve “The New Jim Crow” for inmates. The ACLU blames the N.J. corrections department’s supposed culture of systemic racism, pointing out that the state imprisons 12 times more black people than white people.
“In addressing prisoners’ First Amendment rights, the U.S. Supreme Court has repeatedly clarified that ‘prison walls do not form a barrier separating prison inmates from the protections of the Constitution,’ nor do they bar free citizens from exercising their own constitutional rights by reaching out to those on the ‘inside,'” ACLU lawyers argued. “Because ‘The New Jim Crow’ addresses corrections policy and other social and political issues of public concern, it ‘occupies the highest rung of the hierarchy of First Amendment values and is entitled to special protection.'”
The ACLU requested that the prisons remove “The New Jim Crow” from their ban lists by Jan. 24 to be followed by a more complete review of the rest of the content on the lists. The ACLU did not say whether it would pursue legal action if prisons don’t comply.
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