Ban on prison 'porn reading rooms' advances in Iowa Senate

Legislation that would shut down "pornography reading rooms" in Iowa's prisons and prohibit inmates from having nude photos was advanced Wednesday by an Iowa Senate subcommittee, despite a warning it could worsen offenders' sexual frustrations.

Senate Study Bill 3035 has been proposed by the Iowa Department of Corrections. It would reverse a policy in place for three decades since the late Chief U.S. District Judge Harold Vietor upheld findings in 1988 that the state's prison rules on pornography were unconstitutionally vague and overbroad.

Michael Savala, the Iowa prison system's general counsel, said the state legislation would mirror a policy currently used by the Federal Bureau of Prisons. Iowa prison officials believe the measure would withstand a court challenge from inmates, he added.

"The department really feels that inmates having access to that kind of material does not lend itself to pro-social thinking and behavior and as far as our responsibilities to change the mindset of the offender as they transition back into the community," Savala said.

In addition, Savala said the elimination of special prison rooms in which inmates could read sexually oriented material would end a staff-intensive process. Now, offenders check out publications and must be escorted to a private reading area. When the inmate is finished examining the publication, the magazine must be returned to a staff person, who inspects it to make sure no pages have been removed and no contraband has been inserted into it, he said.

Furthermore, the population of sex offenders has grown significantly in Iowa's prisons since the 1980s and 1990s and prison officials want to keep sexually oriented publications away from them, Savala said.

But Sen. Rich Taylor, D-Mount Pleasant, who is a retired Iowa State Penitentiary employee, opposed the bill. He contended the legislation ignores the fact that male inmates have a sexual drive.

"That is just a fact and you have to have some way to relieve that," Taylor said. "This gives the inmates no release point except another offender, and don’t think that it doesn’t happen. This will make it worse. They will have no other alternatives for their relief. I think that this is a bad idea.”

However, Sen. Tom Shipley, R-Nodaway, who chaired the subcommittee meeting, supported the bill, saying he couldn't envision that reading sexually oriented material in a private reading room would be part of a rehabilitation program. He also sympathized with prison officials who believe the bill would ease staffing issues.

"There isn't any corrections system in the country that has extra people standing around. This takes away from things that they have to do," Shipley said.

He was supported by Sen. Charles Schneider, R-West Des Moines, who said he will defer on the issue to Iowa Department of Corrections officials, although he asked for additional information. The bill now advances to the Iowa Senate Judiciary Committee.

The legislation strikes a provision requiring state prison officials to provide, as necessary, suitable space for reading material for inmates, although it would permit prison libraries. In addition, the bill prohibits the prison system from using any government funds "to distribute or make available any commercially published information or material to an inmate that is sexually explicit or features nudity."

Iowa has about 8,300 inmates behind bars in nine state prisons. Inmates are not allowed to browse the Internet for pornographic websites.

The current policy is specified under an Iowa law titled "Institution Reading Rooms." But the state's politicians have never been enthusiastic about allowing inmates convicted of serious crimes to relax in special areas while perusing sexually oriented publications they have purchased. The proposed legislation was shared with the Iowa Board of Corrections in September.

At the Iowa State Penitentiary, some inmates occasionally still use a designated room to read sexually oriented materials at Fort Madison's maximum-security prison, but it's not a common practice, according to prison officials.

Even when the reading rooms were initially established in the late 1980s, prison officials said the rooms were infrequently used and inmates complained it was humiliating to use a designated pornography reading area. However, Fort Madison's male inmates have still been allowed to have glossy men's magazines in their cells which have pictures of women, assuming the publications don't violate prison standards.