Have you seen the latest issue of Backpacker magazine?
If so, you’re one up on Joe Johnson.
Johnson is serving a 6-year sentence for burglary and grand theft at a minimum-security correctional institution in Florida. And prison officials recently suspended his magazine subscription.
According to the notification Johnson received, “The articles on wilderness survival and hiking the Appalachian Trail are perceived as a possible threat to security and good order due to information therein that could be beneficial to an escaped inmate.”
Derek Schnapp, spokesman for the Illinois Department of Corrections, can see where the prison’s Literary Review Committee is coming from.
“Any type of magazine we deem may be a threat to security, it’s prohibited, period,” he says. “We don’t have a standing list. It’s determined by publication and [a screening committee] goes through it and decides if it could be made available to the offenders.”
As for Johnson, he has spent at least some of his newfound free time writing to Backpacker, which confirmed his incarceration with Johnson’s warden.
” … the prison suddenly decided that camping information was a security risk,” according to Johnson’s letter in the May issue. “It’s gotten so ridiculous that if my mom sends me a letter that mentions a trail, they reject it. As for survival skills, try eating the food here — there are grubworms that taste better.”
There goes the subscription to Bon Appetit.
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