In Virginia, a Jailhouse Legal Manual Is a Banned Book

by Colin Asher · 2010-07-26 11:30:00 UTC
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These days, there's a book that's giving Virginia prison officials a headache. When it recently arrived at the Coffeewood Correctional Center, where a prisoner had ordered the free publication (with permission), prison officials got cold feet. They thought it might be troublesome.

So, rather than deliver the book to its intended recipient, prison officials redirected it to the state Publication Review Committee. After careful consideration, the committee decided the book was “detrimental to the security, good order, discipline of the facility, or offender rehabilitative efforts or the safety or health of offenders, staff, or others.”

What a dangerous book this must be, possessing — in the eyes of prison officials — near-mythical powers. Right?

Actually, the book in question is not a bomb-making manual, or treatise on the relative merits of knife and stick fighting. No, it's a legal manual. A dense, dry guide designed to help inmates file Section 1983 lawsuits protesting prison conditions or abuses.

The supposedly dangerous book is entitled The Jailhouse Lawyer's Handbook, and contains rabble-rousing chapters with incendiary titles like: “How to Start Your Lawsuit,” “The Legal System and Legal Research” and “Planning Your Section 1983 Suit.”

Claiming that such a book is dangerous doesn't even pass the laugh test. As Rachel Meeropol, one of the book's authors, told the AP: "If it is dangerous to educate people about the Constitution, there are a lot of law schools who are going to be in trouble."

But of course the state's Department of Corrections hasn't yet reversed themselves, and the issue is headed to court for resolution. The National lawyers Guild and the Center for Constitutional Rights (which co-published the book) have filed suit, and the case is due to be heard in court in December.

At which point, hopefully, reason will triumph. Because, all sarcasm and snide remarks aside, something really important is at stake here.

As Jeffrey Fogel, a Virginia lawyer assisting on the case, so eloquently asks: “When a prison system starts to impose rules like we're not going to let you have a manual that's going to let you resolve disputes peacefully ... what lesson is being taught to the prisoners?”

Photo Credit: Mr. T in DC

Colin Asher is a former social worker and award-winning freelance writer whose work has appeared in the Boston Globe and the San Francisco Chronicle Magazine, among many others.
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