# Why were writers in prison allowed to keep their manuscripts that they wrote in prison? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [March 14, 2015, 1:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-were-writers-in-prison-allowed-to-keep-their-manuscripts-that-they-wrote-in-prison/714983 "2015-03-14T13:16:07Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2015, 1:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-were-writers-in-prison-allowed-to-keep-their-manuscripts-that-they-wrote-in-prison/714983/1 "2015-03-14T13:16:07Z")
I am not referring to incarceration in the United States, but rather, imprisonment in other countries in the past, some of them fairly repressive countries. Why were some political dissidents or other historical authors (think Hitler writing Mein Kampf in prison, etc.) allowed to keep their written manuscripts when they emerged, or even allowed a pen and paper to write at all? Why didn’t the guards confiscate their writings when they were released - “Sorry, can’t take that with you?” Wouldn’t it have been obvious to the authorities that the dissident or prisoner might be writing things unflattering about the government that might have a big impact once published? ---
**Author:** ![Ignotus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/ecc23a/32.png) [@Ignotus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ignotus)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2015, 1:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-were-writers-in-prison-allowed-to-keep-their-manuscripts-that-they-wrote-in-prison/714983/2 "2015-03-14T13:34:34Z")
Prison wards got cut a share? ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2015, 1:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-were-writers-in-prison-allowed-to-keep-their-manuscripts-that-they-wrote-in-prison/714983/3 "2015-03-14T13:59:53Z")
In Hitler’s particular case, his prison conditions were intentionally made lenient by authorities who agreed with his political ideas. He was given a comfortable cell, allowed to have furniture and various luxuries (including writing material), and allowed to receive outside people visit him in his cell. (He had over thirty guests at his birthday party.) Hitler stayed in prison long enough to write his book and establish his “street cred” and then the rest of his sentence was commuted (he only served nine months of his five year sentence). ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2015, 2:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-were-writers-in-prison-allowed-to-keep-their-manuscripts-that-they-wrote-in-prison/714983/4 "2015-03-14T14:26:16Z")
\ ---
**Author:** ![GreasyJack](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/df705f/32.png) [@GreasyJack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreasyJack)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2015, 3:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-were-writers-in-prison-allowed-to-keep-their-manuscripts-that-they-wrote-in-prison/714983/5 "2015-03-14T15:23:04Z")
It also needn’t necessarily just be bribes. If some imprisoned dissident has sympathizers in the country at large, they’ve probably got them in the prison too. The prison administration itself usually pretty on board with the the ruling regime, but being a rank-and-file guard hasn’t been a particularly desirable job historically. ---
**Author:** ![Apollon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e47774/32.png) [@Apollon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Apollon)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2015, 3:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-were-writers-in-prison-allowed-to-keep-their-manuscripts-that-they-wrote-in-prison/714983/6 "2015-03-14T15:39:39Z")
Because you can lock criminals in a cell, but you’re not allowed to steal from them. Prison guards have to obey the law, too. ---
**Author:** ![boffking](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/858c86/32.png) [@boffking](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/boffking)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2015, 3:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-were-writers-in-prison-allowed-to-keep-their-manuscripts-that-they-wrote-in-prison/714983/7 "2015-03-14T15:56:05Z")
If a prisoner is writing, he is staying out of trouble. I know if I was a guard, I would much rather see a prisoner writing than see one starting fights or figuring out how to smuggle things inside. ---
**Author:** ![Springtime\_for\_Spacers](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a3d4f5/32.png) [@Springtime\_for\_Spacers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Springtime_for_Spacers)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2015, 5:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-were-writers-in-prison-allowed-to-keep-their-manuscripts-that-they-wrote-in-prison/714983/8 "2015-03-14T17:11:18Z")
Some prisoners writing was (is) done in secret. IRA hunger striker Bobby Sands wrote poems, articles and an autobiography while in the H Block. > [@](#): > > [Bobby’s writings](http://www.bobbysandstrust.com/writings) span the last four years of his life in H-Block 3, 4, 5, or 6. They were written on pieces of government issue toilet roll or on the rice paper of contraband cigarette roll-ups with the refill of a biro pen which he kept hidden inside his body. They were later smuggled out. ---
**Author:** ![Donnerwetter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b2d939/32.png) [@Donnerwetter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Donnerwetter)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2015, 6:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-were-writers-in-prison-allowed-to-keep-their-manuscripts-that-they-wrote-in-prison/714983/9 "2015-03-14T18:21:07Z")
Did they really deny Sands the right to write poems? I find that hard to believe. ---
**Author:** ![Springtime\_for\_Spacers](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a3d4f5/32.png) [@Springtime\_for\_Spacers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Springtime_for_Spacers)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2015, 1:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-were-writers-in-prison-allowed-to-keep-their-manuscripts-that-they-wrote-in-prison/714983/10 "2015-03-15T01:28:13Z")
> [@Donnerwetter](#): > > Did they really deny Sands the right to write poems? I find that hard to believe. He was free to compose poems but not to write them down or distribute them. he was, after all, a terrorist. ---
**Author:** ![Slithy\_Tove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slithy_tove/32/18248_2.png) [@Slithy\_Tove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slithy_Tove)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2015, 10:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-were-writers-in-prison-allowed-to-keep-their-manuscripts-that-they-wrote-in-prison/714983/11 "2015-03-15T10:52:30Z")
Could he have inflicted anything worse with his writing than John Bunyan’s _Pilgrim’s Progress?_ ---
**Author:** ![AK84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85e7bf/32.png) [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2015, 11:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-were-writers-in-prison-allowed-to-keep-their-manuscripts-that-they-wrote-in-prison/714983/12 "2015-03-15T11:37:41Z")
> [@boffking](#): > > If a prisoner is writing, he is staying out of trouble. I know if I was a guard, I would much rather see a prisoner writing than see one starting fights or figuring out how to smuggle things inside. This. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2015, 2:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-were-writers-in-prison-allowed-to-keep-their-manuscripts-that-they-wrote-in-prison/714983/13 "2015-03-15T14:58:14Z")
> [@](#): > > the refill of a biro pen which he kept hidden inside his body How oddly non-specific. ---
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2015, 2:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-were-writers-in-prison-allowed-to-keep-their-manuscripts-that-they-wrote-in-prison/714983/14 "2015-03-15T14:58:25Z")
> [@boffking](#): > > If a prisoner is writing, he is staying out of trouble. I know if I was a guard, I would much rather see a prisoner writing than see one starting fights or figuring out how to smuggle things inside. Yes, while he is \*in \*prison, but once he is about to be _released_, why wouldn’t prison authorities say, “Hand over those several hundred pages of book-in-progress; we’re not letting you take that with you?” Again, this thread isn’t about American prisons, but about those in other countries that might be a lot less fair or just. ---
**Author:** ![Amateur\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/59ef9b/32.png) [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2015, 3:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-were-writers-in-prison-allowed-to-keep-their-manuscripts-that-they-wrote-in-prison/714983/15 "2015-03-15T15:36:40Z")
> [@boffking](#): > > If a prisoner is writing, he is staying out of trouble. I know if I was a guard, I would much rather see a prisoner writing than see one starting fights or figuring out how to smuggle things inside. “You go back in time and see Hitler quietly writing _Mein Kampf_ in his cell instead of raising trouble out in genpop. You…” ---
**Author:** ![chaika](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chaika/32/405_2.png) [@chaika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chaika)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2015, 3:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-were-writers-in-prison-allowed-to-keep-their-manuscripts-that-they-wrote-in-prison/714983/16 "2015-03-15T15:56:04Z")
Chernyshevsky wrote his novel _What is to be Done?_ while imprisoned in the Peter and Paul Fortress. The manuscript was smuggled out of the prison and in a stunning act of bureaucratic incompetence by the tsarist censors it was legally published, despite being an obvious anti-government pro-revolutionary tract. (Not that I’m defending the censors, of course. Just from their point of view it was a huge mistake to allow this book to be published). It isn’t much of a novel but it was wildly popular and hugely influential among the radical crowd. Russia has a long history of imprisoning its intellectuals if they express thoughts considered dangerous to the state. In many cases the authorities confiscated manuscripts produced by prisoners but people will always find ways around these regulations. Evgenia Ginzburg, who was imprisoned in the Soviet Union for ten years, says that in one prison she was entitled to receive blank notebooks but had to turn them in to the prison censor at the end of the month. She would write poems, memorize them, erase the poems as best she could and then cover the paper with meaningless mathematical equations before handing in the notebooks. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2015, 7:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-were-writers-in-prison-allowed-to-keep-their-manuscripts-that-they-wrote-in-prison/714983/17 "2015-03-15T19:47:39Z")
> [@Amateur\_Barbarian](#): > > “You go back in time and see Hitler quietly writing _Mein Kampf_ in his cell instead of raising trouble out in genpop. You…” “…let Mein Kampf be released and keep Hitler in prison.” ---
**Author:** ![Jim\_s\_Son](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e19adc/32.png) [@Jim\_s\_Son](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jim_s_Son)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2015, 11:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-were-writers-in-prison-allowed-to-keep-their-manuscripts-that-they-wrote-in-prison/714983/18 "2015-03-16T23:51:14Z")
Apparently Albert Speer was not allowed to write memoirs while serving a 20 year sentence for war crimes. He managed to smuggle 2,000 pages out and after being released, published two books. > **[Inside the Third Reich](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inside_the_Third_Reich)** > > Inside the Third Reich (German: Erinnerungen, "Memories") is a memoir written by Albert Speer, the Nazi Minister of Armaments from 1942 to 1945, serving as Adolf Hitler's main architect before this period. It is considered to be one of the most detailed descriptions of the inner workings and leadership of Nazi Germany but is controversial because of Speer's lack of discussion of Nazi atrocities and questions regarding his degree of awareness or involvement with them. First published in 1969, it a... ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2015, 12:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-were-writers-in-prison-allowed-to-keep-their-manuscripts-that-they-wrote-in-prison/714983/19 "2015-03-17T00:04:12Z")
> [@Springtime\_for\_Spacers](#): > > Some prisoners writing was (is) done in secret. IRA hunger striker Bobby Sands wrote poems, articles and an autobiography while in the H Block. > > They were later smuggled out. Similarly, there’s the Marquis de Sade, who wrote _120 Days of Sodom_ in secret on pieces of paper that were smuggled to him and which he hid behind a loose brick in his cell wall. He didn’t have a chance to retrieve it when he was moved out of the Bastille, and it remained hidden until it was found long after de Sade’s death (who thought it had been destroyed on Bastille Day.) ---
**Author:** ![Peter\_Morris](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/peter_morris/32/359_2.png) [@Peter\_Morris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peter_Morris)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2015, 6:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-were-writers-in-prison-allowed-to-keep-their-manuscripts-that-they-wrote-in-prison/714983/20 "2015-03-17T06:25:17Z")
> [@Velocity](#): > > Yes, while he is \*in \*prison, but once he is about to be _released_, why wouldn’t prison authorities say, “Hand over those several hundred pages of book-in-progress; we’re not letting you take that with you?” A question is, why WOULD they do so? The prison authorities are not the people who censor publications. It simply isn’t their job to decide what material should or should not be published. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-were-writers-in-prison-allowed-to-keep-their-manuscripts-that-they-wrote-in-prison/714983.md?page=2)