Court Rejects Prison Book Label Policy

U.S. District Court Judge Claudia Wilken of the Northern District of California issued an injunction earlier this month preventing the California Department of Corrections from enforcing a policy that prohibited inmates from receiving books, periodicals, magazines or calendars solely because a book label was not attached to the shipment.

The case was filed in April 1997 by Todd Ashker, a prisoner at Pelican Bay State Prison in Crescent City, Calif. The prison returned a Barnes & Noble order sent to Ashker because the shipment did not conform to a new policy that required any packages from a book vendor or publisher to include a label carrying the vendor's stamp. The policy was instituted to ensure that books shipped to Pelican Bay inmates came from authorized vendors and not from friends or family who could hide contraband in the packages.

According to Herman Franck, attorney for Ashker, the net effect of the policy is to prevent most Pelican Bay prisoners from buying books, since neither booksellers nor publishers want to take the time to correctly label the shipments. Ashker's complaint noted that in November and December 1996, more than 100 book packages were returned to senders because they did not carry the label. The complaint also noted that in July 2000, Ashker's cellmate Frank Clement received a letter from Penguin Putnam informing him that the company would no longer ship books to correctional facilities.

In issuing the injunction, Wilken ruled that "there is no common-sense relationship between the book label policy and PBSP's interests in preventing the introduction of contraband or ensuring prison safety," particularly since even if book shipments include the label, they are subject to inspection. Franck said he was pleased with the decision, observing that "many prisoners are hungry for books."