Prison inmates have it tough - but that's only to be expected because it is prison and they are being punished, after all. A good prison system looks to the future, however, and takes steps to help ensure that people don't return to crime and therefore also to prison. Learning more about how to read and write can aid in that and some writing programs do very well - for example, Barbara Parsons Lane won a $25,000 PEN American Center prize for her 2003 book "Couldn't Keep It To Myself: Testimonies from our Imprisoned Sisters." Did prison officials praise her? No, they erased her work and the work of all the other inamates.

According to the Norwich Bulletin:

Prison officials destroyed computer files containing inmates' personal writing days after a prisoner won a national writing award, best-selling author Wally Lamb said. Lamb, who teaches a creative writing workshop at the York Correctional Facility in East Lyme, said Wednesday that 15 women inmates lost up to five years of work when officials at the prison's school ordered all hard drives used for the class erased and its computer disks turned over.

Why did they do this? It's inexplicable. Had an inmate used the program to commit a crime, one could perhaps generously interpret the actions as an over-zealous attempt to crack down on wrongdoing. But nothing even remotely like that is the case here. It's not even vaguely wrong to write so well that you win a prize. It's really unbelievable and I hope that someone gets into a lot of trouble over this.

Read More:

• Recent Books on Free Speech
• Court Decisions on Free Speech and Censorship