In Prison, White Supremacist Literature Is Required Reading
To survive the box, you learn to fish. People on the outside call it solitary confinement, but it isn’t really, not even at a place like Upstate Correctional Facility, the supermax prison in Malone, New York, ten minutes from the
In the harsh confines of Upstate Correctional Facility, a supermax prison in New York, prisoners are forced to endure solitary confinement, locked in a tiny, concrete cell for most of the day. Despite the oppressive isolation, communication and community thrive among inmates. They trade items through the bars, exchanging food, tobacco, and pornography via fishing techniques utilizing toothpaste tubes and string.
The administration may confiscate banned books, but they inevitably resurface, smuggled or carried in by facility staff. These texts serve as the spiritual foundation for prison gangs, studied and revered as if they were religious scriptures. The most dangerous time for inmates is their first week in solitary, devoid of any reading materials, music, or personal belongings.
In this confined space, they are left with their thoughts, which can be both a source of torment and an escape from the monotony. Some prisoners use this time to consume literature, devouring the banned books that provide a radical and dangerous alternative to their solitary existence.
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