Banned in Boston: Prisoner Legal Self-Help Books
A nonprofit publisher of legal self-help volumes intended for incarcerated criminals has sued Massachusetts over a claimed state ban on distribution of its books throughout the prison system.
Prison Legal News contends in the suit that state Department of Correction officials refuse to add the publisher to the list of approved prison vendors, and that this policy is unconstitutional, reports the Associated Press.
The Seattle-based mail-order company offers a number of publications popular with prisoners, AP notes. They include “a monthly journal of court decisions and other news affecting the rights of prisoners” and books on inmate legal rights such as No Equal Justice: Race and Class in the American Criminal Justice System and Represent Yourself in Court: How to Prepare and Try a Winning Case.
