The Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ) has banned yet another book from its prisons. Except this time, it was the inmates themselves who wrote it.

TEXAS LETTERSan ongoing anthology of letters written by inmates detailing their experiences in solitary confinement, will no longer be accessible to those in custody. Publisher and editor-in-chief Damascus James says he received a letter from TDCJ in July informing him of the decision.

James describes the project on his website as a work that “explores the loss of reason, humanity, and, often, hope through the personal writings” of inmates who have spent months, years, and sometimes even decades in solitary confinement. Much of the collection features portraits of violence at the hands of prison officers and grueling accounts of living conditions in solitary confinement cells.

Studies of the long-term effects of solitary confinement attest to the brutal nature described in many of the letters. Half of all suicides in jails and prisons occur in solitary confinement, study finds. study published in JAMA Network Opena medical journal. Simply experiencing solitary confinement at any time during incarceration increases the odds of dying in the first year after release by 24%.

The ban on TEXAS LETTERS was no surprise to James. Not only have Texas prison authorities reputation for banning books, but also for trying to evade the term solitary confinement altogether by using instead alternative expressions.

“They euphemized torture, calling it “administrative segregation” and “restrictive housing” for years in an attempt to hide the harsh realities of the torturous isolation of thousands of people,” James said. Reason. The ban “was clearly an attempt to silence the voices of those who suffered the torture of solitary confinement.”

More than 10,000 books are currently banned from Texas prisons. TEXAS LETTERS flight. 1 and volume. 2 join a long list of banned content, which includes the Pulitzer Prize-winning film The color purple, Freakonomicsand even Where is Waldo? Spectacular Santa Claus. Notable omissions include books such as Adolf Hitler’s My Kampfas well as two books by former Ku Klux Klan grand wizard David Duke.

Letters sent to James and the other anthology authors by TDCJ claimed that the books contained “material that a reasonable person would interpret as written solely for the purpose of communicating information intended to bring about the collapse of prisons by disrupting offenders, such as strikes, riots or security-threatening group activities,” according to an Instagram account job on the anthology account.

Additionally, the TDCJ found that the books could encourage “deviant criminal sexual behavior” and that they also contained information about “setting up and operating criminal schemes or how to avoid detection of schemes criminals.”

James said Reason that he could not find a single passage that supported the TDCJ’s accusations of “criminal deviant sexual behavior.” James further rejected claims that his work contributed to the collapse of prisons through “strikes, riots or security-threatening group activity”, while the letters were only written to expose “highlight the obvious inhumanity of solitary confinement.”

Ultimately, “this is something the TDCJ would like to keep in the dark,” James said. The TDCJ did not respond to a request for comment.