Reading materials being turned away from inmates at the Washington County Jail.



We got a call to our tips line from a Rogers woman Wednesday night. Her boyfriend is serving 11 months for a parole violation.



She told us she tried bringing her boyfriend a graphic novel, which is a story told through pictures, but was denied.



The Washington County Sheriff’s office said inmates have a lot of time on their hands, and with that time they get creative with whatever they can; often making weapons out of the most mundane objects.



So Captain Kenny Yates said the books that come into the jail are screened for more than their content because some can be turned in to weapons.



For that reason, he told us there are regulations on the type and size of reading material they approve. Books, he said, can’t be any larger than 8″ by 9″ and can’t be more than two inches thick. Yates said the bigger the book, the more lethal it can be.



“A device of this size could be thrown in the face of an officer or another detainee, to distract them. Very sharp points that were made out of paper. They get the paper wet and and they mold it into items. This particular item was made out of a rag, they wet pieces of a magazine or a book, made it into a hard ball.” Capt. Kenny Yates said.



Captain Yates said the jail also recently banned newspapers from being delivered to the jail for inmates because the inmates he says were using them to make things, and were cluttering their cells. They now get their news through speakers in their cells, and a 24-hour radio source.



As we said, this story originally came to us on our tips line. If you ever feel like you have something for our news team to look into, give us a call or send us an email.

