“This April, the Iowa Department of Corrections issued a ban on charities, family members, and other outside parties donating books to prisoners.”
The official reason is contraband. Twelve of the seventeen incidents Washington cited didn’t involve books at all, and guards bring in most of the contraband. The approved vendors charge full price, and tablet companies bill by the minute for public-domain classics while prisons take a 5% cut. Reading programs cut recidivism from 45% to under 19%. The ban costs everyone except the vendors.