Sadiq Khan – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Ministry of Justice

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Sadiq Khan on 2014-04-28.

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what books are banned from being kept in prison libraries.

Jeremy Wright

Prison Service Instruction 45/2011 states that censorship will not usually be exercised except in the case of offensive or illegal material. Some materials may be banned by the prison governor on a case-by-case basis.

The Custodial Public Protection Manual contains a list of publications that prisoners are not allowed to possess. It focuses on child sex offending. No books on the list are obtainable through prison libraries. Apart from this, the Ministry of Justice does not maintain a list of books which are not allowed to be kept in prison libraries.