Updated: Friday, February 12, 2021 - 8:47am
Johnny Cash famously sang about shooting a man in Reno, “just to watch him die in his legendary “Folsom Prison Blues.” In the song “Money Trees,” Pulitzer Prize-winning rapper Kendrick Lamar proclaims “the one in front of the gun lives forever.” While both songs depict gun violence, only one is banned in Arizona prisons.
When an inmate receives a letter, magazine, book or CD in the mail, prison administrators review the materials first. If the items fall within one of several broad categories established by Arizona Department of Corrections guidelines, the inmate is denied the material. Reasons for exclusion can include “depictions of street gangs” to “descriptions of drug paraphernalia.”