BY WALLACE McKELVEY | WMcKelvey@pennlive.com

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TEXAS inmates are free to delve into Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf but can’t read The Color Purple.

Frederick Douglass is persona non grata for detainees at Guantánamo Bay.

Prior to a 2012 legal settlement, one South Carolina jail banned virtually every book except the Bible.

Prisoners live their lives under careful surveillance—for good reason—and their days are scheduled with military precision. That control extends even to their inner lives: what they can read and, in a sense, what thoughts they are allowed to think.

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One would have a difficult time making out genitalia in the book but nudity, even covered in paint, led to a ban on a book of Joanne Gair's body painting artwork.

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Until recently, Pennsylvania's list of banned materials included quite a few head-scratchers: a book of Pablo Picasso paintings, the State Employees' Retirement Code and a tourism brochure promoting "scenic Route 6" barred for purported sexual content, not for security reasons.

“We had a lot of things on that list that should have never been,” said Diana Woodside, the Department of Corrections’ policy and legislative director. “The department was overzealous in censorship and the secretary [John Wetzel] said we had to change that.”

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Religious texts generally aren't restricted in Pennsylvania prisons but there's one key exception: Anton LaVey's Satanic Bible. The controversial 1969 text details the dogma and rituals of modern Satanism, such as a long passage on so-called "Satanic sex."

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Pennsylvania lifted many of those old restrictions and, in 2015, issued a revised policy to rein in what critics saw as onerous and arbitrary censorship. The current list of publications banned from all state prisons—reduced from some 2,000 items to a few dozen—still inspires debate, however.

"If you can't get access to basic material that transforms your life, you can't rise above this," said Reuben Jones, who served 15 years for robbery and now runs a nonprofit that helps inmates and their families. "When has literature ever been harmful to anyone? It's Orwellian."

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A series of books by Robert Greene, whose writings on power and strategy have been referenced in songs by Jay-Z and Kanye West, have been barred from state prisons. The ban on The Art of Seduction referenced an objection to sexual content. The others had no rationale.

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Under the current system, anything that comes through a Pennsylvania prison’s mailroom—whether book, letter or magazine—is first screened for contraband and security risks. Books and magazines, which must be mailed from a publisher or retailer, are then referred to a local committee that reviews content.

Banned publications fall into a few broad categories, including materials that:

Inform about escape methods (including maps and road atlases), explosives, weapons or other contraband

Instruct on the ingredients or manufacture of drugs, poisons or intoxicating beverages

Advocate violence, insurrection against the government or its facilities or criminal activity or misconduct

Create a danger within the context of the correctional facility

Contain racially inflammatory material, nudity or sexually explicit material, with exceptions for material of artistic, educational and medical value.

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A Time publication called "150 Years of Photo Journalism" was banned due to photographs of minors that were included in the book.

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In practice, the vast majority of books and magazines are denied for sexual content and the majority of those are because they contain images of fully or partially naked women. For example, celebutante Kim Kardashian’s book of selfies was banned for its iPhone-style photos in which she exposed her nipples and other parts of her body.

Inmates and publishers have the right to appeal that decision, first to the prison superintendent and then to the department’s main office in Harrisburg. The central office can either uphold the ban, thus adding it to the statewide denial list that’s effective for all prisons, or reverse it. Unless an inmate chooses to send a denied publication back, it will be incinerated.

(County prisons, which operate based on their own set of rules and standards, vary greatly in what they allow and how appeals are handled.)

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Pennsylvania has lifted the ban on many artists, including Picasso, restricted due to nudity or violent images. Illustrated, however, still pose a quandary since many include realistic but heavily stylized sexual content. Here's the cover of a denied book of illustrations, Art of Caretta - Hard Candy.

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Previously, the process was more restrictive because a denial from one prison could lead to a book or magazine being banned statewide.

The current system still has its shortcomings.

Individual prisons may be a great deal more restrictive, particularly if prisoners and publishers don’t appeal local bans. But Woodside said her office tries to avoid unnecessary censorship.

For example, a number of bestsellers—from John Grisham to 50 Shades of Gray—are on the ban lists in other state prison systems but don't appear on Pennsylvania's.

“I’m not going to deny John Grisham,” Woodside said.

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Multiple editions of Black Men magazine fell afoul of the prison panel due to its photo spreads of scantily clad women. A few editions of Playboy are also on the ban list although Department of Corrections officials say most inmates don't even try to get that magazine delivered. Compiled letters to Penthouse, sans photos, were allowed.

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In 2014, the department ruled that the 50 Shades trilogy—which contains playful and raunchy scenes of consensual sex and bondage—was permissible in prisons statewide.

All prisons face difficult ethical and legal questions, particularly when it comes to allowing access to sexual content.

The Prison Rape Elimination Act (PREA), a 2003 federal law designed to protect inmates and staff from sexual violence, governs correctional systems. The law is broad enough that some prisons take a narrow view of what kinds of sexual content are permissible while others allow for greater leeway.

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Several psychology and sociology books appear on the banned list due to possible security risks. In this one, David Lambert explains what it means, for example, what crossed arms or the tugging of an earlobe may signal.

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What is clear is that PREA calls for a zero-tolerance policy for sexual activity.

“We don’t want to promote sexual activity and also enforce PREA on the other hand,” Woodside said.

Changing community standards are one important factor. In essence, the kinds of sexual content considered acceptable on network TV and in bestselling novels are generally considered acceptable in the prison.

“It’s hard to pick up any magazine without seeing a breast somewhere,” Woodside said. “It’s not a blanket thing: You’ll see an advertisement for perfume with someone showing a nipple. We’re not going to deny that magazine necessarily.”

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Two editions of the radical environmentalist magazine Earth First! found their way to the banned list due to the presence of articles instructing "how to monkeywrench equipment . . . and how to disguise yourself so as to not get caught" and "how to sabotage several types of equipment by 'unlubricating' with abrasives."

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Magazines like Esquire, GQ and Maxim are a good example of this: Local bans are routinely appealed to Harrisburg and, at least so far, no issues have been denied for nudity—although they have been for other security-related content.

Rape and sex with minors, meanwhile, remains a sensitive subject that’s liable to get a book banned. For example, Pennsylvania banned a Time publication called “150 Years of Photo Journalism” because of two pages that featured potentially suggestive photos of minors.

For years, Pennsylvania’s prisons drew criticism for the seeming wholesale ban on artistic nudity, such as Picasso’s surrealistic depictions. Now, there’s still a tension between what is considered art and what isn’t. Manet and Pissarro, impressionist painters known for their nude portraiture, are exempt from the ban on sexual content. But more recent artists, particularly cartoonists and graphic novelists, are kept out of prisons.

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Men's magazines like Esquire, GQ and Maxim often face scrutiny due to photo spreads and advertisements featuring scantily clad women in repose. Ditto fashion magazines like Vogue and W. The only issue of Esquire to end up on the banned list, however, raised a red flag due to an article about a 3-D printed gun.

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Woodside said inmates are also becoming increasingly savvy about how to circumvent the restrictions, having books with sexually explicit content shipped to the prison under the artistic exception.

That places the state in an awkward position—having to decipher a prisoner's intent.

On Aug. 30, the state reversed an earlier decision to allow prisoners access to a book called “The Nude Female Figure: A Visual Reference for the Artist.”

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The Department of Corrections' system allows for books that were denied to later be permitted. This book, ostensibly a reference guide for artists when drawing nude portraits, is a rare recent case of a previously permitted book being subsequently denied. "Inmates are not using this material for artistic purposes," reads the cryptic rationale of the Aug. 30, 2017, decision.

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The book was ostensibly a guidebook for drawing female anatomy. In the recent decision to deny access to the book, this was the state’s rationale: “Inmates not using this material for artistic purposes.”

Woodside said 75 inmates at one institution ordered one such art book.

“We don’t have 75 artists at this institution,” she said. “It’s being used to sexual gratification.”

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Popular manga like Japan's "The Ghost in the Shell" often end up on the ban list due to graphic violence and nudity, even in cartoon form.

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Of course, there's also a question about whether sexual content should be discouraged at all. PREA, the federal law, is premised on the idea that pornographic material leads to sexual violence in the context of prisons.

“I think it works in the reverse,” said Jones, executive director of the nonprofit Frontline Dads. “The absence of pornography in prison leads to sexual aggression.”

Pennsylvania prisons don’t allow conjugal visits between inmates and their spouses.

Access to sexual content, Jones believes, would give them a release.

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Rolling Stone magazine is far more than a music magazine: For years, it has included a great deal of political and current events reporting (as well as risque portrait photos). It's the former that led to one issue, from January 2016, appearing on the ban list due to an article detailing Mexican drug czar El Chapo's escape from prison.

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Jason Bloom, president of the state corrections officer union, said he doesn’t think sexually explicit material leads to more sexual violence.

“I don’t believe you become a predator because of what you read or look at,” he said. “Maybe that’s short-sighted on my part but I’m a firm believer that you’re in control of your actions.”

But Bloom, who’s served 25 years in state corrections, said he and other officers enforce department regulations regardless of their personal beliefs. Safety, he said, his top priority.

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A British safe-sex manual called "The Bottom Line" used dolls with no genitalia in order to get past prison censors. It nonetheless found its way to the list of materials denied at Pennsylvania prisons.

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Woodside said prisoners have proffered fairly convincing arguments for allowing explicit content when they appeal a denial.

“A lot of them would say it doesn’t cause violence—that it’s the opposite,” she said. “That it’s a stress reliever that would calm them. I’ve gotten some colorful explanations.”

The state tries to err on the side of access, particularly for narrative and artistic works, Woodside said, but it has to operate under existing law.

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Inmates have extremely restricted access to the Internet but a book on hacking by textbook publisher McGraw Hill was banned because of the possibility that it could be used in order to commit crimes. Ditto a book on marijuana hydroponics.

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Claire Shubik-Richards said she hasn't heard of any issues with banned books since she took over as executive director of the Pennsylvania Prison Society earlier this year.

She has seen complaints of tech issues and alleged price gouging with computer tablets. Inmates aren't allowed Internet access, at least not the way most people think of it, but the tablets provide heavily restricted access to downloadable content for a fee.

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"Hollywood in Kodachrome," a coffee table book of glamour photos from the 1940s, because of visible female nipples in one photograph.

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Tom Innes, a long-time Philadelphia public defender, said bringing maps and laptops into prisons can be problematic at times.

Inmates are barred from having maps, out of fear that they could use them in an escape attempt, but their attorneys can bring maps with 24 hours notice to aid in criminal defense or appeals.

Laptops, which are used to show a client surveillance or body camera video, are also restricted but can be brought in by attorneys with advance notice.

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Unlike many other states, Pennsylvania's prisons generally don't restrict political literature. You won't, for example, find The Autobiography of Malcolm X on the list of banned books. The department has reviewed a number of issues of Revolution, a Communist newspaper. All but one issue has permitted. The exception was an article detailing strikes among "prisoners in America's hellholes." Similar reporting on prison strikes led to a ban on various editions of the San Francisco Bayview, described as a national black newspaper.

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“It takes longer, having to get permission in writing and so on,” Innes said, “but it doesn’t hit me as overly burdensome.”

From an inmate’s perspective, however, the restrictions and the appeals process to overturn a local denial can seem unnecessarily punitive.

“Transforming their lives starts with literature,” said Jones, who served time during the more restrictive era. “If you don’t have that, all you’ve got are four walls and a prison guard who may or may not be racist in charge of your life. Books serve as an escape.”

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Celebutante Kim Kardashian isn't known for her modesty so it probably isn't surprising that her book of selfies (photographs taken of oneself with a smartphone) was denied for inmate consumption by the state Department of Corrections. (Photo by Evan Agostini/Invision/AP)

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Wallace McKelvey may be reached at wmckelvey@pennlive.com. Follow him on Twitter @wjmckelvey. Find PennLive on Facebook.

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