Conn. inmates have choice of violent books

Associated Press

HARTFORD, Conn.

Inmates in Connecticut prisons have access to true crime books and works of fiction that depict murder and graphic violence, with no apparent restrictions based on a reader’s criminal history, according to a review of the prison library system by The Associated Press.

“In Cold Blood,” about a 1959 killing in Kansas, is available in at least two Connecticut prisons, including one where a man on trial for a similar 2007 home invasion in Cheshire had served time. Prisons spokesman Brian Garnett said talking about book policies would violate a gag order in the case.

Before the trial began, lawyers for Steven Hayes, who was incarcerated at 17 prisons before the Cheshire crime, filed a motion asking a judge to bar as evidence the names of several books that Hayes read behind bars. The judge never ruled because prosecutors said they would not raise the issue during his trial, for which deliberations begin today.

Other books available in the prison system include Ann Rule’s “If You Really Loved Me,” about the real-life manipulation of a 14-year-old into murdering her mother, and “Along Came a Spider,” a novel about a psychopath who kidnaps and kills children of prominent people. The AP obtained lists of prison library holdings under the state’s Freedom of Information Act.

The prison department’s published policies and directives, which outline everything from when an inmate can see a dentist to the step-by-step procedure for carrying out capital punishment, are vague when it comes to libraries. They simply require prisons with libraries to record their inventory.

The state does have a prison media-review panel that can bar publications sent directly to inmates for being sexually explicit, describing the construction of weapons, or encouraging criminal activity. Libraries are not specifically mentioned.

“In Cold Blood” was found on two of four library lists the AP reviewed. It was one of more than 5,000 books at the low-security Willard-Cybulski prison in Enfield and among more than 17,000 books in the library at Osborn, which houses higher- security inmates.

It describes the true story of two parolees who broke into a respected Kansas family’s home and, finding no money, killed the parents and two of their children.

In the Cheshire case, prosecutors allege that Hayes and career criminal Joshua Komisarjevsky targeted the home of prominent doctor William Petit. They are accused of killing Jennifer Hawke-Petit and her daughters, 11-year-old Michaela and 17-year-old Hayley. Michaela and her mother were raped; prosecutors say that Hawke-Petit was strangled and that the girls died in a fire set by the two men.

William Petit was badly beaten but escaped and testified in Hayes’ trial. Komisarjevsky awaits trial.

Several high-profile crimes across the country have been linked to books. In 1996, 14-year-old Barry Loukaitis killed two students and a teacher at a school in Moses Lake, Wash. Prosecutors said he got the idea after reading “Rage,” written by Stephen King under a pseudonym.

Lawyers said 1980s California serial killer Leonard Lake was inspired by the John Fowels novel “The Collector,” about a butterfly collector who kidnaps women and keeps them in a remote cell.