External Publications

Penal Press: External Publications

Penal press publications operated under varying degrees of oversight from prison administration. Disagreements between inmates and administrators over prison conditions or penal reform were not uncommon.  

Oversight of publications often looked like:

  • Only allowing “constructive” criticisms  
  • Censorship of columns, articles, and editorials  
  • The cancellation and destruction of entire issues
  • Not allowing the sending or receiving of penal press publications to/from other penitentiaries  

Under the umbrella of the penal press were a handful of publications, which operated outside of prisons, and were often run by former inmates or prison abolitionist groups. These external publications still feature articles written by current inmates, but provide the option of publishing anonymously. Running outside of the prison system, external publications subvert censorship and provide authors the freedom to be openly critical of the institutions that they are serving in, the penal system at large, and those responsible for running it.
  

First page of Break Through's Fall 1972 issue. Cover of Bulldozer's first issue (August 1980): text reads "while there is a lower class I am in it, while there is a criminal element I am of it, while there is a soul in prison I am not free - Eugene Debs""

Image Caption: Covers from Break Through (Fall 1972), and Bulldozer (August 1890).


The library holds three external publication collections:  

  • Break Through: Published by ex-offenders and serving offenders under the John Howard Society of Hamilton Ontario. 
  • Bulldozer: Run by the Prision Solidarity Collective, an anti-state, anti-authoritarian, and prison abolitionist group. Copy for the publication comes from current and former inmates (received and printed anonymously if requested). 
  • Transition: Written and edited by inmates and ex-inmates of federal penitentiaries with ensured anonymity, if desired, and with complete editorial freedom. 

For researchers, these collections provide an unfiltered and uncensored look at the opinions of inmates on the Canadian penal system, and the issues most relevant and pressing to them.  

As stated in Transition's premier issue (volume 1, no. 1, 1972):

“Transition, for the inmates and ex-inmates, is our opportunity to have said and be read without prior censorship, without fear of retribution, and without fear of such coercions as are inherent in the punishment-reward system of justice and corrections in this country”.  

For a full record of the issues the library holds pertaining to this topic, please refer to the penal press finding aid (PDF.).