The nation's largest book ban: Inside the fight to read in America's prisons

Episode 25: Prison Books Transcript

Julia Dixon Evans: By 2021, Cherish Burtson had turned her life around. But a dark cloud loomed over her, threatening to unravel her progress at any moment.

Cherish Burtson: Any relationships I developed or any goals I had of going back to graduate school, they all had to be put on standstill.

Evans: She was only 28 at the time, but had lived what seemed like multiple lifetimes. She grew up in San Diego, moved to Northern California for college, then started dating someone who was dealing drugs, which led to her arrest on conspiracy drug charges. Then she had to wait three years for a sentence. During that wait, she got sober and tried to take care of her mental health, but nothing could prepare her for what was next.

Burtson: So in that December, I had to disenroll for my classes at community college, quit my job and pack up my things and get dropped off in a prison called Dublin.

Evans: The Women's Federal Prison FCI Dublin, near the Bay Area, was a dreary place.

Burtson: It was during COVID and so there are many months when we wouldn't leave our cells at all, except every other day to use a shower for 15 minutes, and that's it. We couldn't even go outside. Aside from that, we were sitting on our beds in the cells, and I only could do one of two things, either sleep or look out the window and watch the geese 'cause there was tons of geese at that prison.

Evans: But Cherish had one thing, one respite from the brutal monotony, geese or not.

Burtson: So really the only brief escape we had were books. And I went through so many books. I think that's the only thing that allowed me to actually get through it.

Evans: Not only did the books transport her mind away from her lonely cell, they transformed her. She was able to find a way to handle her dire situation from the inside out.

Burtson: Once I started reading books about Taoism and the Power of Now as well, some different books like that, I began focusing more on every moment and you know, deep breathing and looking, finding little things every day to look forward to as small as that was.

Evans: As transformative as books can be for people who are incarcerated, it's surprising how difficult it is to get books in jail or prison.

Burtson: During COVID, you know, there was a prison library, but we couldn't go in there, since it was a federal facility, they did not allow us to have used books, so they had to be directly from Amazon.

Evans: If you didn't have someone sending you books or money to buy them from the outside, you only had access to the limited material already inside the prison. Cherish was lucky. She had loved ones sending her books, and with them, letters. It was her lifeline.

Burtson: So when you're in there, you're just at a complete standstill and you really feel like the outside world forgets about you and it's those little things, letters and books, that make you feel like you actually still are a part of the world, and that you still do matter.

Evans: Today, Cherish is still dealing with the long term impacts of incarceration, but she's dedicated her life and career to helping people battle through the dark situations she survived. She works as a counselor, assisting syringe exchange programs and connecting people who need help with groups and shelters. And she also volunteers with Books Through Bars, a local program that sends books to incarcerated people. She knows firsthand the difficulties of getting something to read on the inside.

Burtson: We're getting more books sent back and I think they're increasing censorship. So there's certain genres or authors that don't get through.

Evans: Talking to Cherish, book program volunteers and experts, it became clear: When you are locked up in the United States, you don't just lose your freedom to move and work and see your loved ones, you lose your freedom to access ideas, to express yourself and to learn.

Moira Marquis: Once you are criminalized, your First Amendment rights are at the whim of carceral authorities.

Evans: It's easy to forget about the nearly two million people in the United States behind bars at any given moment, and the countless more on the outside whose lives are affected by incarceration. And sometimes it's easier to imagine the criminal justice system is doing what it's supposed to. But Cherish is part of a dedicated group of people tirelessly committed to making life for those affected a little easier, to restoring their humanity and changing minds.

Burtson: These are people's mothers, brothers, aunts, uncles, children, and so being able to have that direct contact and impact with people who are incarcerated and showing up for them is so important. And when you're inside, you do feel so disposable and forgotten about. And so being able to read somebody who you don't even know's words and a book that they sent you, knowing that people are thinking about you and caring about you and fighting for you is very impactful.

Evans: From KPBS Public Media, this is The Finest, a podcast about the people, art and movements redefining culture in San Diego. I'm Julia Dixon Evans.

[Theme Music]

Evans: When we first met Cherish, she told us about one of the worst times in her life, and during a sentence at FCI Dublin with the help of books. This was actually the very first story that we started working on for The Finest way back in December of 2024. We were so struck by Cherish's story that we kept in touch with her over the past year. We learned more about her own journey, visited her book packing group in San Diego and researched the barriers and censorship these groups face. Months after that initial conversation, she came to visit us in our KPBS studio to start from the very beginning, when she was a little kid growing up in San Diego's Golden Hill neighborhood.

Burtson: One of my actually favorite memories is being little, probably like starting at 4 or 5, and my mom would take us to the downtown library, and that was always my favorite day. I wasn't really into TV. We didn't really have computers and stuff like that. So that was my one way of connecting and using my imagination and learning about worlds other than my own. I've always loved memoirs. When I was younger, I really loved Torey Hayden, who was a child and adolescent therapist and writer. My favorite book is "Chronology of Water."

Evans: Lidia Yuknavitch.

Burtson: Yeah, she's amazing. There's actually a movie coming out about it, so I'm really excited.

Evans: We think Cherish could certainly write a compelling memoir of her own. Her life started to change after she left San Diego. She went to UC Santa Cruz for college and then to Oakland for her first job. It was then, before her own legal troubles, that she first got interested in prison book programs.

Burtson: When I lived in Oakland, I was already kind of getting into organizing and prisoner rights issues. I don't know. It's always just been something that called to me. I didn't really know anyone that had been in prison. It just always seemed like something that people didn't talk about or think about enough. So when I found out about Books Through Bars, I began volunteering and it had such an impact on me actually opening people's letters, learning a little bit about the conditions that people are in. I just never could have seen that I would be on the receiving end of a project like that.

I initially began getting into drugs from just a way of coping with my mental health and certain things that I was dealing with at the time. I came back to San Diego. I went to rehab, I got out and I ended up relapsing. I ended up meeting somebody and it had to do with drug dealing. That's ultimately what led to my incarceration. I was in an on and off again relationship with him for awhile and it was really difficult for me to break out of that. I was not in a good place mentally at the time.

I had never been in jail. I had never had any police contact, really. I mean, I'd been pulled over, gotten a speeding ticket, that type of thing, but nothing further than that. So the first time I got arrested, it was for conspiracy. I was dating somebody who was dealing drugs. And I just never really thought that I would be complicit or in trouble for dating a drug dealer.

Evans: When Cherish was first arrested, she was ripped out of a rough time in her life and flung into a nightmare that's hard for her to even remember.

Burtson: I was able to call my mom and tell her that I was in jail, but after that point, you're kind of at the liberty of the guards if they want to let you out or if you have to stay in your cell. So most of that time, the first couple weeks, I was just in my cell. It's really not a comfortable experience to go through withdrawals when you're in jail. You also don't have adequate medical support, and unfortunately a lot of people pass away from experiencing withdrawals, especially from alcohol or benzos in jail, which I was coming off of benzos and heroin. So it was traumatizing. I was scared and in a way over my head.

Evans: Cherish spent three harrowing months in jail while battling addiction. Somehow she got through it and was let out on bail. In the meantime, federal prosecutors picked up her case, setting into motion an excruciating waiting game while her fate was decided.

Burtson: During this whole next three-year period, I still had no idea how long. There was a chance that I could have gotten probation or one year or two years, whatever. But you know sometimes they would tell me, oh, you might be doing 20 years.

Evans: While awaiting sentencing, her world was extremely limited. She couldn't leave the county, she couldn't work with kids, which she had done previously, so she resorted to telemarketing. As hard as Cherish worked to pull her life together, she was swimming upstream. And this was all before she even set foot in prison, before she'd begun chipping away at her eventual prison term. The uncertainty and the trauma of jail and everything she'd been through took a toll on her.

Burtson: I was just kind of in this in-between period and unfortunately, the psychological effects of being incarcerated really brought out a lot of paranoia and psychosis and me in a way that I had never experienced to that degree, so it was also during that time that I was in and out of mental hospitals, was still able to stay sober, which is great, but it was not an easy experience and it was hard to readjust to a life and try to make it work when I also didn't know what the outcome would be.

Evans: But she persevered and eventually it almost looked like she was thriving.

Burtson: I went back to school to become a drug and alcohol counselor. I was working as a drug and alcohol counselor. I was involved in prisoner support. So yeah, really at that point, all I needed was to go to rehab and to stay sober, but instead I got a prison sentence.

Evans: After three long years and after completely changing the trajectory of her life, the waiting was over.

Burtson: The judge said that yes, while I did turn my life around, I still owed a debt to society, and she also said that I could be a bright light to bring into prisons and show people how to do things the right way, which that comment can go one of two ways. I guess I see where she was coming from, but at the same time, you know, I could have also done that from the outside.

Evans: Cherish was sentenced to three years in federal prison, with the chance to get that time reduced if she completed a special program. Her conviction was for felony drug conspiracy charges tied to her relationship with a romantic partner. It's actually one of the most common reasons women are incarcerated.

Since the 1980s, with the war on drugs and its mandatory minimums, the number of women incarcerated in the United States for drug charges and conspiracy has sharply increased. These situations often go hand in hand with abuse.

But for Cherish, when she finally got her sentence, she felt a strange sense of relief, ready to get it over with and put this unthinkable chapter of her life behind her. But she knew the next few years wouldn't be easy.

Burtson: So they gave me a date, which was about a month later. Drove up there with my mom. She dropped me off and prior to that, I was like, OK, I'm so ready. Let's do this. I mean, I wasn't excited about it, but I just, I wanted it to be done with. But then the second that that door closed and I was in that prison and I was now a prisoner and I had nothing, nobody to my name, things got real. Things got really real.

I didn't know how I was going to get through this time, especially because you have no control and people think that prisoners have certain rights or that incarcerated people have certain rights, but really when you're in there you don't have a single right. You have right to food and water, but there are times that we didn't have water. There were times that the water wouldn't work, so then we'd have to get water bottles once a day when we would get our meals.

Evans: The prison Cherish was sent to, FCI Dublin, isn't even open anymore. It was shut down in 2024 after investigations into rampant sexual abuse by staff. Cherish arrived at the height of those investigations, which made everything worse. She said the incarcerated women's communication was monitored. If they spoke to investigators or anyone about what was happening, the staff would punish them for it. The feeling, she said, was one of total and intentional isolation.

Burtson: You're supposedly supposed to have a right to not be sexually assaulted. You don't even have that right. So just that feeling of complete powerlessness and not having ability to access the phones and talk to your family and tell them what's going on. And it's really, really a scary, scary feeling because even if you were to be able to talk to your family, you can't even really tell them what's going on because you can get in trouble for that. You can get retaliated against. They want you to be completely separated from that world. They want people on the outside to not know actually what you're experiencing, because if they do, I think a lot of people wouldn't stand for that.

Evans: This was late 2021 and COVID restrictions were still in effect in many prisons. For Cherish, it meant that she could only leave her cell for 15 minutes every other day to shower. She had a lot of time to think about how she ended up there.

Burtson: I was definitely at this point dealing with a lot of internalized shame and self-hatred and also a lot of hatred too for the situation that I was in and the people who I felt put me in that situation. There were definitely times when I felt that it was completely unfair and the mental torment that I was experiencing, it's something that I'm still coming to terms with now. And that I'll always carry with me.

Evans: But when Cherish got her hands on books, they were like a portal into another world, far away from a federal prison embroiled in scandal, suffocating COVID lockdowns and the dark corners of her own mind.

Burtson: Probably my first week or so, they went around with a cart and it had some books on it. A lot of them were just like older murder mysteries or random books, and then my friends from the outside also started sending me books after a while. Yeah, that became my escape the whole time that I was incarcerated and reading the book of Dao about living in the moment, living in acceptance really helped me at that time. Any Lidia Yuknavitch book, the biography of Assata Shakur. I also love poetry. I love beat poetry. I love Allen Ginsberg. It's hard for me to remember every single book I read because I read hundreds. I would read sometimes a book a day.

Evans: Cherish was able to stay the course and was released early. She can trace a clear line between those books and her ability to take control of her mind. That's why today she's so committed to prison book programs.

Burtson: These programs are imperative and can be life saving.

Evans: Volunteers come together, sift through letters from incarcerated people, and find the perfect book to send them. It's a simple act that can offer what may be a life changing burst of inspiration to someone in an awful situation.

After the break, we'll visit one of these programs ourselves, read letters from people on the inside and hear from experts about the surprising obstacles volunteers face as they try to get books into prisons, obstacles that stretch back centuries and seem to violate some of the most precious values our country claims to uphold. Stay with us.

[Music]

Evans: Today, about two years after her release, Cherish not only works professionally with people dealing with drug addiction and the criminal justice system, she volunteers with Books Through Bars in her free time.

The group's regular book packing events are serene, even joyful. Producer Anthony and I experienced it ourselves on a sunny afternoon last December. At UC San Diego's nonprofit Groundwork Books, the walkways outside are scattered with folding tables and chairs, U.S. mail bins full of packages and piles of unopened letters from people in correctional institutions across the country. About 20 volunteers sift through books, fill out forms and stuff packages.

As we arrived, volunteer terry vargas was opening an envelope.

terry vargas: Two letters came in this one envelope. People will share envelopes, save on their postage as well. Isaiah says, Hello, I'm writing to request free books. I am in the hole and have been here for a long time. I am seeking Black history books, hospitality books, Black social issues and thrillers. Grief, loss of child and anger management.

So Zach's letter says, Hi, my name is Zach. I'm writing to request books. I really appreciate the work your organization is doing for prisoners. It really helps me not lose my cool. It saves my life, really. I appreciate any travel or leisure books slash literature, nature and science, technology and social change. Paperback only, used is OK, and then the return address.

Evans: And then it's off to the stacks. Tucked behind Groundwork's main shop is a cramped storage closet where Books Through Bars keeps its library of donated books and supplies. This is the fun part, playing matchmaker for books.

vargas: So this is, we have places in tourism here and travel so I'm just gonna go like, what place do I think would be cool, but a lot of these are more of like travel guides. I'd like to think that it's still helpful that even just to see pictures, you know, not necessarily to build their own travel itinerary, but I focus more on getting pictures. Maybe this one wouldn't be great because it's just actual locations you should check out.

Anthony Wallace: I actually see my favorite book, my No. 1 favorite book, this one. It's amazing.

vargas: Oh really?

Wallace: Yeah.

vargas: "Death in the Grand Canyon"?

Wallace: It's the stories of all the known deaths that have occurred in the Grand Canyon, which sounds very kind of dark, but the stories are incredible. They're just like thrillers.

vargas: That's cool.

Wallace: And people don't always die, sometimes they make it.

Evans: I'll jump in for a second to vouch for Anthony's oddball favorite book. The "Death in National Park" series is actually an incredibly compelling collection of storytelling. These books are about the often dangerous intersection of humanity and the natural world. And as you're about to hear, even a seasoned book matchmaker like terry thought it was a great fit for both Zach and Isaiah.

vargas: That's so interesting. And does it also just talk about the Grand Canyon itself?

Wallace: Yeah, the history, the geology and the science of it. Yeah, it's my favorite book.

vargas: Cool. I wouldn't have known that otherwise. Thank you for sharing. And if anything, I'm like, that sounds very special for me to send to Zach if he wants to learn about the Grand Canyon, too, he can read about it. Yeah, he asked for leisure book and literature so he can, he'll learn about…

Wallace: It's thriller too.

vargas: That's funny. He can share it with Isaiah.

Wallace: Yeah, that'd be amazing.

Evans: After that, it's time to pack the book and maybe even write a note to include. Anthony wrote a letter to Zach, told him it was his favorite book and left his email and phone number in case Zach wanted to share how he liked it.

That day, the group sent out hundreds of books, hopefully on their way to the hands of hundreds of readers, but not all of those books are going to make it to their intended recipients. We never heard back from Zach. We may never know if he received "Death in Grand Canyon." Books Through By San Diego says that, on average, only about 70% of the packages they send make it through security.

vargas: Facilities are becoming stricter and stricter with the requirements. Some facilities have adopted requirements where they only accept white envelopes, and these are just like arbitrary rules that just add barriers for us to be able to send these packages.

Evans: On top of random restrictions, there is also widespread censorship. As both a volunteer and a former prison book recipient, Cherish knows this well.

Burtson: They are trying to censor books more and more, and that's a big problem.

Evans: She sees it as another way that prisons exert control. For example, DIY books, instructional books about learning skills or crafts are some of the most rejected.

Burtson:Yeah, because they don't want people learning how to have like a hustle in prison. They don't want people to learn how to tattoo or make art or sell certain things because that's sometimes how people make their money. So I think definitely having access to DIY, learning how to do certain things is so important.

Evans: Censoring books might seem like an odd quirk of the United States justice system, but it actually reflects deeper policies that have evolved over time. To understand that history and the systemic struggles of these prison book programs, we turn to a researcher who has spent decades studying them.

Moira Marquis: My name is Moira Marquis. I have a PhD in literature and I have volunteered and organized prison book programs for almost 20 years, and the founder of Prison Banned Books Week, which is an annual weekly campaign where we raise awareness about carceral censorship.

Evans: According to a 2023 study by PEN America, coauthored by Moira, correctional facilities in all 50 states contribute to the nation's largest book ban. Many states, including California, keep banned book lists for prisons. Other states rely on vague guidelines. Books with any sexuality, violence or content seen as a quote "threat to security" are often censored. So are those DIY instructional books or stories about life in prison. The book that routinely tops the censorship lists might surprise you.

Marquis: The most common, commonly banned book is a cookbook called "Prison Ramen." It's a cookbook on how to cook in your cell, which is contraband. You're not supposed to have food that you take from the dining hall into your cell. There can be very large gaps in between times where people can eat in prison, like sometimes 13 hours, so the cookbook is banned for a whole extensive list of reasons on the states that give rationale. Like there's some creative ones, like one state said they banned it because there's a story about how these people were growing their own tomatoes in the yard and the guards pulled them up because they heard that tomato leaves, when soaked in water, were poison, which is not in fact true, but it was written on the censorship document for why they banned the book.

Evans: California's banned books list is online for anyone to see. Each publication has a brief reason for decision. "The Handmaid's Tale" and a bunch of others are banned for quote "lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value." All told, California's list has about 1,400 books. We couldn't find "Death in Grand Canyon" on the list, but just because a book is not on the banned list certainly does not mean it will make it into the prison. Staff in facility mailrooms can make an on-the-spot judgment and reject a book. When I asked Moira about "Death in Grand Canyon," she gave us a very specific reason why there's a pretty good chance it never reached Zach. It has maps.

Marquis: Maps are notoriously like you can't send them. But yeah, so it's possible that it could have gotten censored if it had anything that included directions or descriptions of environments because carceral authorities say that people can use those in order to hatch escape plans. I mean, travel books frequently get censored.

There's even been instances where like, totally pretend maps, "Game of Thrones" has the map of Westeros in the beginning of it and again, it's people working quickly and essentially doing the default, no, flipped it open, saw the map and just chucked the book, which, you know, rejecting the book, sometimes they kick it back to you, but a lot of times they just throw it in the trash, which really bothers me.

Evans: And now there is talk of moving away from physical books altogether, putting all reading material on tablets. Moira and other advocates say that could make the censorship problem worse.

Marquis: I don't think the tablets are bad to have. It's increasing access, so you know, yes, tablets, but also books, paper books. If we just limit it to tablets, the risk is that it's backend censorship. The DOCs have complete control over what is on those tablets. You just empower them to limit without any possibility of contesting it, what people are reading, information and ideas that they have access to.

Evans: And to understand where we are today with prison censorship, Moira says we need to go back to the very roots of carceral justice in the United States, because in our nation's infancy, prisons look nothing like the ones we're used to today.

Marquis: The initial experiment of detention as punishment in America did not include censorship or denial of First Amendment rights. The project of detention as punishment was designed as a utopian project.

Evans: Those early facilities were more like timeouts.

Marquis: They wanted to cure criminality, and they thought criminality was illogical. You had an error in your thinking.

Evans: It was not particularly punitive. The vibe was at times kind of light.

Marquis: Jailers were bringing in booze, neighbors were helping people abscond. There was singing and merriment, and so that was an affront to the people that wanted criminals to feel repentant and develop some kind of corrective, inner corrective.

Evans: Eventually, that belief spread throughout the country. Harsher forms of punitive incarceration caught on and solitary confinement was introduced.

Marquis: So really, the suppression of free expression was the first reform that happened to the carceral system in America, and they spent millions of dollars building prisons where people were isolated in cells by themselves, couldn't read anything but the Bible, couldn't write their family members. The only person they could talk to was a minister or other clergy.

Evans: So isolation, restriction and disconnection from the outside world became part of the design. And if the goal is to help people rebuild their lives, suppressing their ability to read and learn is self-defeating.

Marquis: Education is the single most highest impact. It reduces recidivism more than anything else, education, well documented over decades.

Evans: There's a wide body of research that calls into question this form of mass incarceration in the United States. A meta-analysis published by the University of Chicago found harsh punishments don't deter people from reoffending. In fact, they may also have what researchers call a criminogenic effect, making people more likely to commit crimes. And really what this boils down to is that over time our prison system has become more concerned with punishment rather than rehabilitation.

Marquis: The act of being criminalized, therefore means that people are effectively dead to rights in this country.

Evans: But prison book programs in San Diego and across the country are pushing back one book at a time. Moira says that the very existence of these programs is a real victory of advocacy.

Marquis: I think that they're allowed to happen because of public pressure. Every time the public has been made aware of the conditions in prisons by incarcerated people writing biographies or publishing things, the public pushes for enabling free expression, which is very telling. It really points out that as a culture, we recognize that without intellectual freedom, you don't have anything else.

Burtson: Prisons make the people who go in come out a lot worse than you go in. It's a very traumatizing experience, no matter how the type of person you are, and I think we just have become so accustomed to it, to accepting that. And it isn't until people have either somebody that they love or care about go inside or they themselves experience that, that they realize, wow, how are we as a society letting such a huge amount of our population go through something like this and not saying anything about it?

Evans: The system can be devastating and overwhelming. Books can give people the power to get through it, a way to catch their breath, put their minds somewhere else — somewhere outside their cell — to regain some sanity and start taking some steps forward. And it's easy to help. The book packing events are open to anyone. The books you send can be eye-opening, rewarding and fun. They might change someone's life or at least brighten their day a little bit.

Cherish has an extraordinary amount of grace and poise, given what she's been through.

Burtson: This entire experience that I've gone through, while it being very painful, I think I am going to be able to channel that experience in a way that can hopefully shed some light and help other people who are going through that experience because what happens to people inside is absolutely not OK.

Evans: When she was sentenced to three years in prison, the judge told her that although she turned her life around, she still owed a debt to society.

Burtson: I definitely did a lot of things when I was on drugs that weren't myself, but really at the end of the day I needed care and concern instead of punitive measures, and that's why I'm a harm reductionist now because I truly believe that people who use drugs or are involved in that lifestyle deserve somebody to tell them that they are still human and they matter because most of the time the reason that we do those things is because something isn't OK internally.

So all that to say, yeah, that phrase debt to society, it's a confusing one for me. But the more collectively that we come together and talk about these issues and bring awareness to them and get involved in some type of project, that's what we can do and we should do. It's a little small changes that ultimately are going to add up to something bigger and alter our way of understanding.

Evans: Special thanks to Cherish Burtson, Moira Marquis, terry vargas and all the volunteers at Books Through Bars San Diego for their help with this episode.

And a big thank you to you, our listeners, for following along this season. This is our 25th episode and our season finale. We'll be back early in the new year with more stories about the people, art and movements redefining culture in San Diego. So be sure to subscribe so you don't miss our return. In the meantime, catch up on any episodes you've missed and leave us a comment, rate us and, best of all, if there's anyone in your life you think might like The Finest, please share it with them.

I'm your host, Julia Dixon Evans. Our producer, lead writer and composer is Anthony Wallace. Our engineer is Ben Redlawsk and our editor is Chrissy Nguyen.

This transcript has been edited for clarity and conciseness.