Inmate reading programs suffer amid state cuts

CUMBERLAND, Md. — “Oh, Miss Shirley is here,’’ says the man behind the library reference desk, peeking over the top of his reading glasses. He is a convicted murderer.

Miss Shirley is Glennor Shirley, head librarian for Maryland prisons, responsible for the rows of books behind the barbed-wire fences here at Western Correctional Institution and 16 other state prison libraries. The relationship between the inmate behind the desk and librarian started with a Commodore 64.

“Remember when you locked me in a room until I learned how to use that computer?’’ says the inmate, who wasn’t authorized by the prison to be quoted by name. Miss Shirley laughs and changes the subject, and then the inmate whispers: “Don’t let her be too modest. She is an amazing teacher. A lot of us have relied on her.’’

Murderers, rapists, thieves, and drug dealers have been relying on Miss Shirley, as she is always called by library visitors, for more than two decades to get them Jackie Collins novels, Westerns, biographies of Henry Ford, the latest James Patterson page-turner, poetry, Entrepreneur magazine, math textbooks, resume guides, and illustrated books about snakes.

But with state budget shortfalls, Miss Shirley is no longer allocated money for new books. Her already tiny slice of the $13.9 million prison education budget was whittled back even further after the department took a $2.1 million hit last year. Staffing is down.

Funds for programs letting prisoners read books to their children — also gone.

These days, her stories about library science behind bars often begin with this phrase, “When I had money … ’’

Miss Shirley has weathered deficits during previous recessions as lawmakers diverted money away from prisoners toward law-abiding citizens — a constituency, she knows, that is prone to ask, “Why give money to murderers to read when people can’t get jobs?’’

Prisoner advocates say neglecting rehabilitation in tough fiscal times is shortsighted, pointing to studies showing education programs can reduce recidivism by 29 percent.

“Libraries in prisons changes lives,’’ says Diana Reese, president of the American Library Association’s division for specialized libraries.

Prisoners acknowledge the difficult decisions lawmakers face.

“Here are these men locked up, promised three meals a day, and we can read at our leisure without paying the rent,’’ says Wayde Heslop, 38, of Silver Spring, Md., who is serving a life sentence at North Branch Correctional for the murder of a 23-year-old man. (Heslop loved “The Count of Monte Cristo.’’)

“Some of these men are coming back home,’’ Heslop said. “If they come back into society, at least they should come back educated.’’

Miss Shirley is not complaining. Rather, she has won plaudits from her prison librarian peers for pushing ahead despite setbacks facing the entire prison reading community.

“Her libraries have been devastated in the last few years,’’ says Diane Walden, Miss Shirley’s counterpart for Colorado prisons. “She doesn’t complain or vent or whine. She is very focused on what she can do. She’s an amazing person and advocate.’’

Banned in Texas prisons: books and magazines that many would consider classics

Ask the Texas Department of Criminal Justice how many book and magazine titles it has reviewed over the years to determine if the reading material is suitable for its inmates, and officials will give you a precise number: 89,795.
Ask how many authors are represented on the list, and they can tell you that, too: 40,285.
But ask how many of those books and magazines have been rejected because prison reviewers decided they contain inappropriate content, and prison officials will tell you that information is unavailable: "There's just no way to break that out," said Tammy Shelby, a program specialist for the prison agency's Mail System Coordinators Panel.

But after the Statesman reviewed five years' worth of publications — about 5,000 titles — whose rejections were appealed by inmates to the agency's headquarters in Huntsville and obtained through open records requests, one thing is clear: Texas prisoners are missing out on some fine reading.

Novels by National Book Award winners Pete Dexter, Joyce Carol Oates, Annie Proulx and William T. Vollmann have been banned in recent years. Award finalists Katherine Dunn and Barry Hannah are on the Texas no-read list, too, as are Pulitzer Prize winners Alice Walker, Robert Penn Warren and John Updike.

Prisoners can't peruse certain books by Pablo Neruda and Andre Gide, both Nobel laureates. "Krik? Krak!" by Haitian writer Edwidge Danticat, who last year won a MacArthur "genius" grant, is prohibited behind Lone Star bars. Books of paintings by some of the world's greatest artists — da Vinci, Picasso, Botticelli, Michelangelo — have been ordered out of state correctional facilities.

And just because a book is a best-seller in the free world doesn't mean it's available on the inside. Harold Robbins, Pat Conroy, Hunter S. Thompson, Dave Barry and James Patterson belong to the don't-read fraternity. Mystery writer Carl Hiaasen does, too, as do Kinky Friedman and Janet Fitch, whose "White Oleander" was an Oprah's Book Club selection.

John Grisham has had four blockbusters banned since 2005. And inmates will have to wait for parole before diving into "Precious," the book by Sapphire that last year was turned into a critically acclaimed movie.

Political connections don't seem to count for much, either. Her father may have been governor and president, but Jenna Bush's "Ana's Story: A Journey of Hope" made the banned list in November 2008.

While it's easy to laugh off the removal of some books (comedian Jon Stewart's "America; A Citizen's Guide to Democracy Inaction" was censored for sexually explicit images), critics say the Texas Department of Criminal Justice's restrictions are a serious matter. Inmates who don't read, for example, have a harder time finding jobs, said Marc Levin, a criminal justice analyst for the Texas Public Policy Foundation.

"Literacy, or lack of it, is one of the biggest problems we have with respect to re-entry," Levin said. "Inmates who want to read should have that opportunity."

Texas prison officials said restrictions on reading material are for the good of both guards and inmates. "We have to protect the safety and security of our institution, but also aid in the rehabilitation of our offenders," said Jason Clark, an agency spokesman.

"And what may not be judged inflammatory in the public at large can be inflammatory in prison."

While prisons for years have restricted reading material available to their inmates, experts in correctional policy concede there is scant research demonstrating that racy literature, dirty photos of tattoos or comics showing naked women — all prohibited in Texas lockups — stunt a prisoner's rehabilitation or cause disruptions.

"There is no evidence concluding that exposure to obscene material affects the morals or attitudes of prisoners," said Robert Bastress, a professor at the West Virginia University College of Law, who in 2004 represented an inmate who sued when the prison library was cleansed of all materials considered "a turn-on."

How books are banned

Texas inmates can receive published material only from publishers or bookstores. Each year, family members, friends and nonprofit organizations arrange to send thousands of books and magazines to prisoners.

Common requests include dictionaries, pulp fiction — Westerns and Star Trek, in particular — and legal and health books, said Scott O'Dierno, who manages Austin-based Inside Books, which has been sending the written word to Texas prisoners for 11 years.

When a book arrives at a Texas prison mailroom, an employee first checks the database to see if the book is already prohibited. If not, said Shelby, "he'll flip it over and read the back." If that provides insufficient information to make a decision, "they scan through it looking for key words" or pictures that would disqualify the publication.

"You can pretty much tell by reading the first few pages," she said. "We rely on them to use their judgment."

If the book is denied by a unit's mailroom staff, an inmate can appeal to Huntsville headquarters. Prison officials say they don't know what percentage of inmates choose to press their cases.

Review decisions are officially made by the six-member Directors Review Committee, which also considers matters of correspondence and visitation. But the committee generally turns its publication appeals over to two program specialists, Shelby and Jennifer Smith, who reconsider the mailroom decision.

Because of the sheer volume of books and magazines they receive, Smith said she typically reviews only the pages cited by mailroom staff as inappropriate.

"We get too much up here to review every book" in its entirety, she said. If the women disagree with the mailroom, the book usually is redesignated as "approved." Otherwise, it goes on the banned list for good unless a policy change merits a review.

Even critics agree that, on paper, the system is as good as any. "I've looked at a lot of policies," said Paul Wright, editor of the Seattle-based Prison Legal News, which distributes the magazine and books to prisons nationwide. "And the Texas one, as written, isn't that bad."

But in practice, he added, many worthwhile books remain banned after a cursory exam simply because prisoners don't appeal.

Last July, a prison censor rejected "The Narrative of Sojourner Truth," a biography of the abolitionist, because of a racial reference. The decision was later reversed. But if the inmate hadn't appealed, the title would have been permanently banned.

Even with appeals, Wright said, "there doesn't seem to be any real review going on." In 2005, mailroom staffers flagged "Freakonomics," the best-selling popular economics book, for its use of a 50-year-old quote containing a racial epithet in a chapter about the Ku Klux Klan. That decision was upheld.

Scott Medlock, an attorney for the Texas Civil Rights Project, said such rubber-stamping stems from a Catch-22: Because the book is banned, the inmate can't review its contents to prepare a rebuttal.

Federal prison policy, by contrast, states, "Where a publication is found unacceptable \u2026 the warden shall permit the inmate an opportunity to review this material for purposes of filing an appeal."

Sex and the Sistine Chapel

Perhaps the most common reason for diverting books from Texas prisoners is sex, portrayed in images and words, although prison officials have struggled to define what's permissible. Inmates could receive magazines like Playboy and Penthouse until 2004, when they were banned, Smith said.

A book or magazine also would be rejected if it "would encourage homosexual or deviant criminal sexual behavior."

In 2007, the "homosexual" reference was deleted, though not before it ensnared "Brokeback Mountain," Proulx's prize-winning love story about two cowboys. ("Homophobia: A History," on the other hand, was approved in 2006.) Written descriptions of other sexual practices — sadomasochism, rape and incest — remain grounds for summary rejection.

State prison administrators have taken an even harder line with images. While pictures of naked buttocks are permitted, depictions of genitalia and women's bare breasts are not.

That applies not just to magazines such as Hustler, but also to offending swimsuit catalogs, tattoo images — even cartoons. The February 2009 Esquire was rejected for a line drawing of a woman in bed, a single naked breast visible over her sheet.

In the past five years, volumes on massage, home health care, circumcision, vintage aircraft nose art, gardening, Dungeons & Dragons and a pictorial history of restaurant menus were rejected for displaying too much explicit material.

Inmates enrolled in sex offender treatment programs, often for pedophilia, cannot receive any reading material except newspapers, religious material, and legal or educational publications. But a ban on images of nude children applies to everyone, Smith said.

Thus, National Geographic magazines are turned away for photos of naked toddlers. Images of unclothed children have also led to censorship of "Anatomica: The Complete Home Medical Reference" and "A Child is Born," featuring primarily in-vitro photos.

Journalism is not immune, either. National Geographic's massive "Visual History of the World" was banned because it included the Pulitzer Prize-winning photo of a naked girl fleeing a napalm attack in Vietnam. "Let Us Now Praise Famous Men," the photojournalistic account of U.S. sharecroppers, and "How the Other Half Lives," a grim chronicle of New York slums at the turn of the century, were turned away for their pictures of unclothed children.

Art has proved especially tricky to regulate. Shelby said she tries to educate mailroom workers to keep their hands off books of paintings featuring naked adults. Yet many great works also display naked children, and books featuring the work of some of the world's best-known artists, including Caravaggio and Rembrandt, have been blocked.

"Things that would be in the Vatican aren't allowed in TDCJ," said O'Dierno, who said his organization has used magic markers to obscure body parts before mailing some books to a Texas prison. In 2006, censors rejected "The Sistine Chapel Coloring Book."

In an effort to separate art from child porn, reviewers have come up with a test, Shelby said: If a naked child has clearly visible wings, it is a legitimate cherub and the book can stay. No wings? It must go.

"If he is naked, the Baby Jesus would be denied," she said.

Security bans and auto repair

Books that could lead to breaches of security and order also are denied entrance to state prisons. Publications considered too racially insensitive fall under a ban of "material that a reasonable person would construe as written solely for the purpose of communicating information designed to achieve the breakdown of prisons."

Many of the rejections — "Fun Under the Swastika" — seem reasonable: Race-related violence is a real concern in prisons. Yet the prohibition has been applied broadly: "Friday Night Lights," the best-selling book about Texas football, was prohibited because of its exploration of racial themes in Odessa.

In October 2007, censors rejected "Coming Through the Fire," which was reviewed on Amazon.com: "In this small but eloquent work, Duke University professor of religion and culture C. Eric Lincoln calls for a 'no-fault reconciliation' between the races." The following month, censors approved "The Hitler We Loved and Why," published by White Power Publications.

Security concerns also have kept educational books out of Texas lockups. "Basic Physics: A Self-Teaching Guide" and "Chemistry Concepts and Problems" were denied for fear inmates might glean potentially dangerous chemical formulas from them, according to rejection notes. Instructional books explaining electric motors, sheet metal fabrication, electrical codes, knot-tying, taxidermy and tanning, guard dog training, radio circuits, home inspections and organic chemistry were also deemed potential security threats, their contents apparently too volatile to risk releasing to Texas's convicted criminals.

In 2005, prison officials censored "Auto Repair for Dummies," and in 2007 they rejected "Residential Construction Academy — HVAC." Among the trades it teaches, Windham, the state's school district for prisoners, lists auto mechanics, diesel repair and HVAC repair.

By policy, censors also scour volumes for descriptions of weapon and drug manufacturing and "criminal schemes," categories that have prevented books such as the "Drugs From A to Z Dictionary" and Guns & Ammo magazine from prisoners' cells. But the restrictions have also led to banning the book "How to Get Off Drugs," magazines about paintball and a how-to manual on rifle engraving.

The potential for aiding escape is another security red flag, prohibiting not only publications with Texas maps but also Statesman humor columnist John Kelso's book of roadside oddities, for what the author describes as unhelpful depictions of Texas terrain.

"I suppose they could use it to run away to the Spamarama," Kelso said.

In 2005, Jim Willett, a retired warden of the agency's Huntsville unit, published a book about his experiences. Two years later, his former employer censored "Warden" because, the reviewers explained, "arial (sic) photos of prisons could facilitate an escape."

Censors also have taken an expansive view of publications that might give inmates a dangerous advantage over corrections officers. While it's easy to understand why a copy of "How to Be An Ass-Whipping Boxer" circulating among angry prisoners could cause unease, it is less clear why "Draw Fight Scenes Like a Pro" was rejected for revealing "fighting techniques."

In December, prison censors intercepted "The Elements of Persuasion: Use Storytelling to Pitch Better, Sell Faster and Win More Business," which, after reading, they turned away as a security concern.

The danger?

"Could be used to persuade others."

Pa. prisoners' low reading and math levels surprise officials

Pa. prisoners' low reading and math levels surprise officials Average reading level was at a fourth-grade mark, but had previously assumed to be between a sixth- and eighth-grade level

PHILADELPHIA — A test of reading skills among inmates in Philadelphia's prison system yielded some worse news than expected: About 25 percent to 30 percent of prisoners read at a second- or third-grade level.

The average reading level was at a fourth-grade mark, but city Prisons Commissioner Louis Giorla said he had previously assumed that the average was between a sixth- and eighth-grade level.

"That was surprising," Giorla said of the results, which he shared Tuesday with members of the Criminal Justice Advisory Board. The board includes representatives from city agencies, including the Police Department, court system, and District Attorney's Office, that deal with criminal-justice matters.

With crowding issues dwindling as the prison population shrinks - a count that nearly three years ago was approaching 10,000 has dipped to under 8,000 - officials said they were refocusing attention on education and other areas key to helping inmates stay out of jail after their release.

The test of 271 inmates was conducted in September.

Overall, the inmates showed higher proficiency when it came to math, with average math skills at a fifth-grade level.

Nonetheless, the low skills in both math and reading "give us an idea of what we're up against," Giorla said. He added that previously about 50 percent of inmates had indicated they had a high school diploma or a GED - a statistic he now believes is "a fallacy."

The results suggest the prison system may have to revamp its education programs, which currently focus largely on helping inmates earn or work toward high school diplomas, or the equivalent.

Everett Gillison, deputy mayor for public safety and cochair of the advisory board, said he may seek funding to provide more educational programs from a donor who gave money recently to the city office overseeing reintegration services for ex-offenders. He did not identify the donor, or how much money the donor gave.

Gillison is also seeking help from Arthur Evans, who directs the city's Department of Behavioral Health and Mental Retardation Services. Evans, who was at the meeting, said additional tests needed to be done to determine whether inmates had learning disabilities.

"Are you thinking these people are cognitively impaired," Evans asked Gillison, who replied he thought that may be the case.

Common Pleas Court President Judge Pamela Pryor Dembe, who cochairs the advisory board with Evans, added: "Well, if not, we have to blow up the whole school system."

Learning to live with dyslexia

Illiteracy affects 42 million American adults, leaving them unable to fill out a simple job application or enjoy a book


Pat Bingham has lived her whole life with dyslexia, but she recently chose to seek help. Many people who suffer from the disorder use memorization, sentence context and first-letter recognition to work out words that don't register correctly.

On a recent sunlit Tuesday morning, 74-year-old Pat Bingham met up with her teacher and tutor, Judy Haley Giesen, of Dubuque, just as she has two times per week for the past year and a half.

In a brightly lit room on the second floor of the Northeast Iowa Community College Town Clock Center, 700 Main St. in Dubuque, students of all ages meet one-on-one with tutors to work through problems with literacy in general and dyslexia in particular. Giesen has been specially trained to help students with dyslexia.

Sitting side-by-side at a table, the two painstakingly work through the spelling and sounding out of words. Alphabet letters and letter combinations are printed on color-coded magnetized squares and arranged on what at first appears to be a Scrabble board.

Elegant in a blue outfit with turquoise accessories, Bingham vividly recalls her difficulties with reading as a child.

"In first grade, the nuns made me write my full name every day -- Patricia Ann Spitzenberger -- and it was really hard for me," Bingham said. "And it didn't seem fair. The other kids had names like Tom Smith.

"I was tested

dyslexia, a definition Dyslexia is a specific learning disability that is neurological in origin. In other words, something in the brain is causing the difficulty. It's a language-processing disorder that is likely an inherited trait. Dyslexia is characterized by "difficulties with accurate and/or fluent word recognition, and by poor spelling and decoding abilities." Decoding is the ability to recognize written or printed representations of words.warning signs of dyslexia in adults * Poor speller * Avoids writing, often quick to hand off writing to others * Often very competent in oral language * May have excellent "people" skills * Has some difficulty with right versus left * Sometimes gets lost, even in a familiar place * Has an excellent memory * Reads with difficulty, slowly * May confuse b and d.

The National Literacy Foundation reports that approximately 14 percent of American adults, or 42 million, are completely unable to read and that an additional 50 million adults are unable to read beyond the expected level of a fourth-grader. Assuming Dubuque follows the national trend, almost 8,000 adults locally cannot read well enough to fill out a simple job application form.

Getting around the problem

A misconception about dyslexia is that dyslexics cannot read. Reportedly, all dyslexics read, but only up to a point. Early on, they begin using strategies to get around their difficulties, often by picking up context clues and guessing at a word by looking at the first letters. Having a good memory also is helpful, but teachers indicate that by third or fourth grade, memory simply isn't enough.

"My teachers kept on telling me that I just wasn't applying myself, that I just wasn't trying. And it wasn't just my teachers. I'd get that at home as well. My own father would say, 'What the hell's wrong with you, Pat?' It's bad when your own father calls you stupid. So teachers would tell me to keep trying. I'd look at the words on paper, and keep looking at the words, and then look again, and it meant nothing to me."

Effect on children

For younger people, the inability to make out words correctly often pales in comparison to the teasing and bullying they might experience due to their learning disability. Others look at them as being "dumb" or "stupid."
"Spelling bees in school were very shaming for me," Bingham said, looking pained at the memories more than half a century later. "When it came to my turn, I'd simply say 'I don't know' and then sit down."

By high school, things were a little better. Having an outgoing and energetic personality helped Bingham tremendously. "My personality got me through. I could speak very well, I related very well to people and I had a really good memory," Bingham said.

Then she and some of her friends went to a play by Dostoevsky called "The Idiot," and she asked her friends something that would follow her like a soiled bridal train until the day she left school. She asked, "What's an i-dot?"

Illiteracy in prison

In the prison and jail population, the percentages of adult illiteracy skyrocket. The National Institute for Literacy reports that fully 70 percent of prisoners in state and federal systems can be classified as illiterate, and that 85 percent of all juvenile offenders can be termed functionally or marginally illiterate. Very few counties in Iowa address the issue of literacy among inmates. Dubuque County does not. The sheriff in Scott County, Iowa, has put a program in place to help inmates who have difficulty reading and writing.

"As part of our booking process, we ask every inmate a simple question, 'Can you read and write?' and if they say 'no' we follow up with an offer of help," said Scott County Jail Director of Programs Bill Boyd. "Not everyone says yes to the offer of help, but when they do we have volunteer tutors who come and work with them."

Inmates in Scott County are also encouraged to work on a high school diploma and are tutored in anticipation of taking the General Educational Development (GED) test.
"The inability to read is a major factor in the lives of our inmates and almost certainly contributed to why they are with us," Boyd said.

A federal study shows that rates of re-arrest, reconviction and re-incarceration were much higher for the members of the prison population who had not participated in correctional education programs, about a 10 percent difference in all three categories.

Causes of illiteracy

There are many causes for illiteracy in the United States, and poverty tops the list, followed by learning disabilities. In the United States, at least half of all those who are illiterate grew up in homes where the income is below the national poverty standards.
The second-most-common cause of illiteracy is learning disabilities, and far and away the most common learning disability is dyslexia. It is estimated that 70 to 80 percent of learning-disabled people with poor or nonexistent reading skills are dyslexic.

The symptoms of dyslexia were first noticed by a German named Oswald Berkhan in 1881 in a sanctuary/institution he ran for disabled and ill people. He noted that a couple of bright people in his care were having reading difficulties, but it would be a full century before the disability was understood to any great extent.

Children as young as age 5 can be accurately tested for dyslexia, though it rarely happens. With limited resources, schools do what they can. The National Institutes of Health report that of every 100 dyslexics, only five are diagnosed and given help. The other 95 struggle, going through life as best they can with little or no assistance from others.

A continuing battle

As the years roll by it doesn't get any easier. One might assume that once a dyslexic person reaches a comfortable place in life and seems to be managing quite well despite the learning disability, that life would be easier. Unfortunately, the untreated issue continues to rear its ugly head.

"It's tough," Bingham said. "You write letters to a Marine son and you worry about looking like an idiot. Or you read stories to a grandchild and when they get to be 5 or 6 they turn to you while you're reading and say, 'Grandma, that's not what it says.'

"When I'm done with this course my goal is to help others who have had the same difficulties," Bingham continued. "I try not to ever accept something without giving something back, and this is no different. I hope to help others. No one should have to go through what I went through."

visit www.sureshotbooks.com for a wide variety of your favorite books & magazines.

Don’t limit inmates’ reading choices

An Oct. 7 article told how the ACLU was suing the Berkeley County jail over its policy barring inmates from having any reading material other than the Bible. While I agree that sometimes the ACLU will file frivolous lawsuits, I’d like to be on the jury that hears this one.

Just because one is incarcerated does not give anyone the right to deny access to certain reading materials other than the Bible. The Bible is one of the best books that anyone could ever read. If we followed the Ten Commandments there would be no need for jails.

But the people — that’s you and me — should have a right to access many reading materials, including magazines and newspapers, so we can have an open dialogue with other people. As a former inmate in our prison system, reading was the only thing that helped me retain my sanity.

Above all, reading in our prison system should be encouraged. Some of the inmates could not read and would ask me to read to them. Sometimes it was the Bible, other times it was letters from home.

This is an injustice to the inmates at this jail. We should allow them the right and freedom to read appropriate materials that may help them deal with their incarceration and broaden their horizons.

After reading this you may disagree with me. That’s OK. At least you had the right and freedom to read it.

Jail should not deny prisoners right to books

THE ISSUE: Jail's information ban

OUR OPINION: Policy is unwise, likely unconstitutional






It must be remembered that the majority of people imprisoned in this country ultimately leave incarceration and return to society. A successful return is and should be the objective. But our track record of success is not strong. Recidivism is a real problem.


The debate rages about why jails and the prison system do not work any better than they do, whether they are more about punishment than rehabilitation, whether they are places of suffering more than reteaching.

We recently wrote in favor of prisons and jails being able to use jamming technology to prevent inmates from using cell phones, which prisoners are not supposed to have. Jails and prisons are not about easy access to the outside world. Regulation is necessary.

What is not necessary is totally shutting down a prisoner's access to information. That's what is happening in the Berkeley County Detention Center in Moncks Corner, where books, magazines and newspapers -- all literature except the Bible -- are banned.

It should not be that way and, in fact, the ban is likely unconstitutional. The county will find out since it is now being sued in federal court in the name of Prison Legal news, a monthly journal on prison law distributed across the nation to prisoners, attorneys, judges, law libraries and other subscribers. Filed by the American Civil Liberties Union, the lawsuit charges that jail officials violate the rights of Prison Legal News under the speech, establishment and due process clauses of the First and 14th Amendments to the U.S. Constitution by refusing to deliver copies of the journal and other magazines and books to detainees.

"This is nothing less than unjustified censorship," said David Shapiro, staff attorney with the ACLU National Prison Project. "There is no legitimate justification for denying detainees access to periodicals and, in the process, shutting them off from the outside world in draconian ways."

The ACLU lawsuit charges that since 2008, copies of Prison Legal News and other books sent to detainees at Berkeley County have been returned to sender, or simply discarded. The books rejected by the jail's officials include "Protecting Your Health and Safety," which is designed to help prisoners not represented by an attorney and explains the legal rights inmates have regarding health and safety - including the right to medical care and to be free from inhumane treatment.

There is no library at the Berkeley County Detention Center, meaning that some prisoners who are incarcerated for extended periods of time have not had access to magazines, newspapers and books - other than the Bible - for months or even years on end. Since these people are detainees, some of whom are awaiting trial, denying access to all information other than the Bible is unnecessary and unwise. We believe it is also unconstitutional.

Canada's top athletes find solace in reading a good book

Olympic gold medallist in skeleton Jon Montgomery charges up the stairs two at a time near the Calgary Curling Club wearing a weight vest during team training on Wednesday


Olympic gold-medallist Jon Montgomery remembers sitting nervously in grade school, as kids took turns reading aloud, counting out how many paragraphs it would be until his turn came up.

Growing up a typical, rambunctious prairie boy in Russell, Man., Montgomery much-preferred chasing hockey pucks and baseballs to sitting still with any book.

So when recess gave way to reading class, the youngster would turn to the same strategy, year after year.

"I would always find the part that would be mine, pre-read that again and again, so I would be more comfortable with it when my turn came up.

"I never really read enough as a kid. I probably should have. I would have done much better in school. I always envied those kids that were so good at it, at all their phonetics and pronunciations."

Montgomery -- in flaming red-bearded glory -- captured the hearts of Canadians in February when he won the gold medal for skeleton at the Vancouver Olympic Games.

He instilled a renewed sense of national pride, celebrating with gusto, guzzling a pitcher of beer moments after his victory then making famous the standing leap onto the highest podium just before being awarded his gold medal.

Today when he wants to get away from the pressures of being the world's best -- days now filled with high-intensity training, speaking engagements and fundraising -- Montgomery finds comfort in a good book, often escaping with thrillers or murder mystery novels.

Right now, he's reading Theo Fleury's autobiography Playing with Fire, another gifted athlete raised in the same Manitoba town as Montgomery.

"When I read subject matter that I'm actually interested in, I really enjoy it. Reading is for pleasure now, it can be an escape, and help me unwind."

And with so many youth immersed in the technology of Facebook, Twitter and texting, Montgomery hopes they'll still turn to reading books, and reading what they love, to form their own image of the world.

"Find something that piques your interest, that you like to read about, and then immerse yourself.

"Reading teaches you to think for yourself, be your own person, and actively engage different parts of your brain."

In this Olympic year, members of Canada's skating and sliding teams are helping promote the Calgary Herald's Raise-a-Reader campaign, which launches this morning with volunteers hawking papers downtown to raise money for literacy.

Alex Gough, who finished 18th in luge at the Vancouver Games, will be out before dawn hoping to earn some cash for four local agencies: Calgary Educational Partnership Foundation, Calgary Learning Centre, Calgary Public Library, and the Further Education Society of Alberta.

Gough is a voracious reader, at times devouring up to three books in a week, and at others reading a 300-page novel in the course of one night. Even when she travels to train or compete, she packs up to six books in her suitcase.

"I'm just reading constantly. I love it. I've been known to start a book at 9 p.m. at night and then, if it's really good, finish by 4 a.m."

Kristina Groves, who won a silver and bronze medal for speedskating in Vancouver, says she too loves to read, "in fits and spurts."

Counterculture books like Naomi Klein's No Logo often spark her interest, as well as Canadian fiction like Joseph Boyden's Three Day Road.

"Reading for me isn't just an escape, it's a journey. It gives you a different mindset, challenges your beliefs and helps with you ability to communicate intelligently.

"There seems to be a shift away from speaking with each other using real words. But you can tell right away when you're speaking with someone who doesn't read a lot."

Like Montgomery and Groves, Gough finds reading to be one of the best ways to rejuvenate a mind and body weary from the stresses of training at the elite level.

"When there's so many things going on in your day, reading is just such a great way to get lost."

Gough, 23, encourages other youth to read as much as they can -- but mainly for fun -- by looking for what they enjoy most.

"There's so much out there for everyone, whether it's the comics or the classics. If you really enjoy it, then you'll do it more."

While Gough is a born and bred Calgarian, many sliders and other winter athletes come here from across the country, with the bulk of our Olympic team still training at local facilities like the Oval and Canada Olympic Park.