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TDCJ: 'Freakonomics' too racially charged

Steven Levitt was surprised when TDCJ rejected his book "Superfreakonomics" on the grounds that it's "sole purpose" was to "Achieve the breakdown of prisons through offender disruption such as strikes, riots, or security threat group activity." Eric Dexheimer at the Austin Statesman followed up and determined that a mistake had been made: TDCJ meant to ban the book's predeessor, "Freakonomics," for the same reason, and confused the two books. Prison administrators, it turned out, were concerned about the use of the phrase "nigger" in several old quotations in an historical discussion of the Ku Klux Klan.I read Freakonomics when it came out, but not the sequel; the idea that it might contribute to "the breakdown of prisons through offender disruption" is an awfully slim reed indeed.continue to full post

Full post as published by Grits for Breakfast on January 09, 2010 (boomark / email).