These Texas Inmates Wrote a Book. Then the Prison System Banned It.

The Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ) has banned yet another book in its prisons. Except this time, it was written by inmates themselves.

TEXAS LETTERS, an ongoing anthology of letters written by inmates detailing their experiences with solitary confinement, will no longer be accessible to those in custody. The publisher and editor, Damascus James, says he received a letter from the TDCJ in July apprising him of the decision.

James describes the project on his website as a work that “explores the loss of sanity, humanness, and, oftentimes, hope through the personal writings” of inmates who have spent months, years, and sometimes even decades in solitary confinement. Much of the collection features portrayals of violence from correction officers and grueling accounts of the living conditions within solitary confinement cells. 

Studies on the long-term effects of solitary confinement attest to the brutal nature described in many of the letters. Half of all suicides in prisons and jails occur in solitary confinement, according to a study published in JAMA Network Open, a medical journal. Even just experiencing solitary confinement at any time during incarceration increased the chances of dying within the first year of release by 24 percent.

The banning of TEXAS LETTERS was not a surprise for James. Not only does the Texas prison authority have a reputation for book banning but also for trying to evade the term solitary confinement altogether by instead using alternative phrases.

“They’ve euphemized torture, calling it ‘administrative segregation’ and ‘restrictive housing’ for years in an effort to conceal the harsh realities of torturous isolation for thousands of people,” James tells Reason. The ban “was clearly an attempt to silence the voices of those who have suffered the torture of solitary confinement.” 

More than 10,000 books are currently banned from Texas prisons. TEXAS LETTERS vol. 1 and vol. 2 join a long list of prohibited material, which includes the Pulitzer Prize–winning The Color Purple, Freakonomics, and even Where’s Waldo? Santa Spectacular. Notable omissions include books such as Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf, as well as two books by former Ku Klux Klan Grand Wizard David Duke. 

Letters sent to James and the rest of the authors in the anthology by the TDCJ claimed that the books contained “material that a reasonable person would construe as written solely for the purpose of communicating information designed to achieve a breakdown of prisons through offender disruption such as strikes, riots or security threat group activity,” according to an Instagram post on the anthology’s account.

Additionally, TDCJ found that the books could encourage “deviate criminal sexual behavior” and that it also contained material on “the setting up and operation of criminal schemes or how to avoid detection of criminal schemes.”

James told Reason that he couldn’t find a single passage that substantiated TDCJ’s accusations regarding “deviate criminal sexual behavior.” James further repudiated the claims that his work promoted the breakdown of prisons by way of “strikes, riots or security threat group activity” when the letters were only written to expose “to light the clear inhumanity of solitary confinement.”

Ultimately, “this is something TDCJ would like kept in the darkness,” James stated. TDCJ did not respond to a request for comment.

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