The Library Service to Prisoners Forum (part of the Association of Specialized and Cooperative Library Agencies) has posted on the ALA website a Prisoner’ Right to Read Statement, for which they are seeking comments. The document is a vibrant plea against censorship and for the right to access information. It concludes with the following statement:
We believe rather that what people read is deeply important; that ideas can be dangerous; but that the suppression of ideas is fatal to a democratic society and destroys the hopes of those segregated from society. Freedom itself is a dangerous way of life, but it is ours. When free people segregate some of their own, they acquire the responsibility to provide the tools required to bring the prodigal home. Chief among those tools is a right to read.