The Arizona’s prison system’s ban on a book about the subjugation of black men in the criminal justice system has prompted a challenge from the American Civil Liberties Union and the author, the New York Times reports. The book, “Chokehold: Policing Black Men,” by Paul Butler, says the criminal justice system targets black men by design and that prisons should be abolished. The Arizona Department of Corrections decided it was “unauthorized content.” Butler, a Georgetown University law professor, and the ACLU are asking the department to reconsider its decision; if it does not, further action, including a lawsuit, is on the table.
Butler said he understood officials’ concerns about keeping people safe in prisons, “but there’s nothing about ‘Chokehold’ that threatens day-to-day safety of inmates or jailers. ‘Chokehold’ is all about threatening the institution of prison. My book wants to abolish prison, but it wants to do it in the same nonviolent fashion that Martin Luther King took down Jim Crow.” The ban is similar to those that had been imposed on another book about racism in criminal justice — “The New Jim Crow,” by Michelle Alexander — in states including North Carolina and New Jersey. The ACLU successfully challenged both of those decisions. “Chokehold” was published in 2017 by the New Press. Its title refers to a maneuver that police officers have used to restrain people — one that became well known when Eric Garner, 43, died after an officer appeared to use the maneuver on him on Staten Island in 2014. Arizona said “Chokehold” was unauthorized because of concerns it might be “detrimental to the safe, secure, and orderly operation” of prisons.