BENTON COUNTY, ARKANSAS, Ark. — On Jan. 27, the ACLU of Arkansas demanded that the Benton County Sheriff restore access to reading material.
Benton County jailers have been denying all reading material to incarcerated people, with the exception of the Bible and other religious material, since the sheriff implemented a book ban last fall.
According to the ACLU of Arkansas, the book ban violates the First Amendment rights of incarcerated people.
“Incarcerated people have a right to access books and other information, which provide a lifeline to the outside world,” said Holly Dickson, ACLU of Arkansas executive director. “The Benton County jail’s book ban is cruel, unnecessary, and counterproductive – hindering the rehabilitation and constitutional rights of the people detained there. Contrary to statements made by the sheriff’s office, access to reading material is not a ‘privilege,’ it is a right protected by the First Amendment and affirmed by the courts. This book ban must be lifted immediately.”
Courts have affirmed that the First Amendment protects incarcerated people’s access to information, including books and other reading material and by allowing incarcerated people to read only the Bible and religious texts, prison officials are engaging in content-based censorship, which is only lawful if it can be shown to have a legitimate security purpose, according to the ACLU of Arkansas.
“The books were being destroyed. Pages were being ripped out of the books and people couldn’t complete the books,” said Lieutenant Shannon Jenkins.
Jenkins says the inmates were using the books more like contraband, blocking vents, putting pages down the toilet and causing damage. She says the costs of fixing those issues were adding up.
Another reason they made this decision was because of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.
“There’s really just not a way to properly sanitize those books where we feel it’s going to be safe to pass them back out,” Jenkins said.
The ACLU of Arkansas says the ban on books at the Benton County Jail is a violation of the inmate's first amendment right as well as due process and they want the sheriff’s office to give their books back.
Executive Director for the ACLU of Arkansas, Holly Dickson says if people are causing problems in the jail, they need to discipline the people who are causing the problems.
“As opposed to disciplining the entire population of the jail and that creates a due process problem. They are punishing people who did nothing wrong and violating their first amendment rights as punishment,” Dickson said.
Dickson calls denying access to books because of safety during the pandemic a red herring.
“They get paper for all kinds of other things," she said. "There are ways if they want to quarantine materials for a day or two before circulating them or otherwise disinfect them, do what they need to do, but to completely deny access to these materials is unconstitutional."
Lt. Jenkins says they haven’t gotten many complaints about not having books and says they have other means of entertainment like dominos, cards and checkers.
“They do get the paper. They do have access to religious materials, the law library and things like that, that we are required to give. In addition to that they have communications through their family through the kiosk which they can email, text,” she said.
The Sheriff’s office is talking about the possibility of getting TVs or iPads for the jail, but they are still in the early stages of those discussions. All the books that were destroyed were donated.