State prisons find solution for book ban
Winter is coming
Reducing drug trafficking behind bars is a good thing. Limiting prisoners’ access to reading materials was not.
It’s one thing to throw the book at a convicted criminal. It’s another thing to not let him read.
But, a book ban — or something pretty close to that — was put in place by the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections in the fall in an effort to block a potential illicit drug pathway into prisons via book donations to prisoners.
Reducing drug trafficking behind bars is a good thing.
Limiting prisoners’ access to reading materials was not.
A resolution has emerged, thanks to the DOC’s willingness to work with prisoner advocates and lawmakers. A new centralized processing center for book orders has been planned.
As things had stood, book donation programs and all mail-order books and publications were prohibited as the prison system battled a new method of drug smuggling: reading materials with paper soaked in synthetic cannabinoids (street name: K2.)
The DOC was to limit new reading material to more expensive e-books as well as to book orders placed on special jailhouse kiosks that, in the end, couldn’t handle the workload.
Under the security crackdown, prisoners were without adequate reading materials. The detriment was obvious.
Outcry from advocates for both books and prisoners ensued. And the DOC became inspired.
The updated policy will allow book donation organizations direct contact with inmates via a centralized screening and processing center at a state institution in Bellefonte. Also, family and friends can order books on behalf of inmates and those books can be shipped directly from publishers or bookstores to the same processing center.
Time is in big supply behind state prison bars. Worthwhile ways to the pass that time? Not so much. The DOC should be doing all it can to encourage more prisoners to read more. As they used to say: Reading is “fun”damental.
It seems like just yesterday that we were saying that there were too many power outages in Pennsylvania and someone ought to pay attention to it.
Actually it wasn’t yesterday. It was August , when the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission said power outages had gone up 150 percent in just one year. Of those 50 statewide incidents, 34 percent were felt by West Penn Power or Duquesne Light customers.
And now it’s happening again. After last week’s blast of snow and sleet, trees toppled and lines fell and more than 50,000 people lost their electricity in southwestern Pennsylvania.
Yes, the storm was unseasonably early. But still, we knew winter was coming, right?
Okay, fine. Snow and ice happen. We can’t plan for everything. Act of God and all that.
But the PUC report shows that the state wants more investment in the infrastructure of power distribution, and that more time and attention has to be paid to maintaining what’s already there.
That shouldn’t be hard to see, even in the dark, when it is taking a massive effort of more than 500 additional lineman and others to work on restoring power. Those are spread across the six states in West Penn Power’s parent company, First Energy, holdings hit by the storm. All told, 248,000 customers were left powerless and 203,000 have been restored .
Hopefully, everyone had lights by Thanksgiving morning. Hopefully, everyone got to watch the Macy’s parade and the holiday meal wasn’t ruined by non-functioning stoves and no one got food poisoning because the refrigerator didn’t work. And hopefully, the utility companies realize that winter doesn’t even start for another 30 days, and that there will be three months of more snow and ice and wind and rain behind that.
Brace yourself for next year, electric companies.
Winter will be coming. Again.