In just two months, prison libraries in Connecticut may be cleaned out. Why? Because Connecticut Department of Corrections Commissioner Leo Arnone has announced that in July, the department will implement more restrictions on the books in prison libraries than are already in place. Connecticut state Sen. John Kissel reportedly asked Arnone to make the move after it surfaced that Steven Hayes, one half of the duo who killed Jennifer Hawke-Petit and her two daughters four years ago in Cheshire, Conn., had read violent books while incarcerated for previous crimes. The rationale is that these books, including In the Middle of the Night: the Shocking True Story of a Family Killed in Cold Blood, somehow influenced Hayes to commit the murders.

While it’s understandable for prisons to ban books on how to make weapons from scratch or dig tunnels to break out of prison, a wholesale ban on so-called violent literature is problematic. It not only violates the First Amendment but also includes books considered classics. Throughout the U.S., the works of William Shakespeare, Toni Morrison and Pablo Neruda have been banned in prisons. Given that an estimated 70 percent of prisoners cannot read beyond the grade school level, such classics should be featured in prison libraries, not omitted.

Both the American Civil Liberties Union and the American Library Association are in agreement on the subject. After all, did Commissioner Arnone stop to think that Steven Hayes read violent literature because he’s an inherently violent person? Reading books didn’t make him that way. And what about all the other prisoners who’ve read murder mysteries and the like in prison and didn’t kill anyone? Tell Arnone that a sweeping ban on literature in prison libraries isn’t the answer to ending crime.