Prison Pornography Ban Raises Enforcement Questions

Overzealous enforcement of a new rule to ban sexually explicit material in Connecticut prisons could result in the censorship of non-pornographic educational material for prisoners, according to the ACLU of Connecticut.

“The ACLU of Connecticut does not advocate for pornography in the prisons, but this type of regulation has a troubling history of being enforced in an arbitrary and overly broad manner,” said Andrew Schneider, executive director of the ACLU of Connecticut.

The new rule, announced July 11 by the state Department of Corrections, will take effect June 30, 2012. It bans “any printed material that contains a pictorial depiction of sexual activity or nudity” with an exception for materials that “when taken as a whole are literary, artistic, educational or scientific in nature.”

“Similar regulations have been used to censor an image of the Sistine Chapel, newspapers and magazines with lingerie ads and the novel ‘Ulysses,’ “ Schneider said.