Prisons will only accept new books from large well known book stores like Amazon.com.
Amazon is the world’s largest bookstore and they will ship to prisons but Amazon sends packages via US Mail, UPS and FedEx and you cant request a specific shipper
Naturally prisoners cant sign for packages when they arrive so it is important that all packages be sent using USPS. Packages requiring a signature will be refused and returned. For this reason it is important for Amazon to ship by USPS only.
How to Force Amazon to Ship by USPS
According to this page on Amazon:
If you also have a PO Box address, it’s best to use that address for your Amazon.com orders. All orders with “PO BOX” in the address are automatically shipped via U.S. Mail.
Top tips for shipping by USPS with Amazon
- Buy only from Amazon themselves and not the third party merchants who also sell on Amazon.com
- Find out the P.O Box for the prison. You can try contacting the mail room
- Always address your Amazon delivery using that P.O Box
- Enter the box number as “PO BOX” followed by the number
- Only ship new paperback books only.
- Limit your deliveries to no more than 10 items
- Do not ship more than one package a month or over 10 books.
The amazon page you link to does not include the statement you quote it as saying. I presume it has been edited by Amazon at some point after you last viewed it.
You might wish to update your post/article/
It seems the information you referred to has been moved to this URL
http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html/ref=hp_left_sib?ie=UTF8&nodeId=201117330
Green Bay Correctional Institution will not accept books without a receipt. Amazon does not always include a receipt with their packages. I have sent some books that the prisoner received and some that have been returned to Amazon marked as “undeliverable.” I recently sent four books to an inmate that GBCI did NOT return to Amazon but would not give them to the inmate. The prison employee suggested that the inmate “donate” them to the prison library. That would be fine except the mail room employees sell the books on ebay or Craig’s list. Amazon needs to do a better job in mailing things correctly to prisons.
MS
If some books get through and some dont, I think you will find it is not the source of the books, but the books and their topics that has caused the censorship. If the shipping and the source remain the constant the only thing that changes is the books themselves.
Also, some prison have a requirement that they have a packing slip which is now not sent by default by Amazon. You have to select “send as a gift”:
Most prisons only accept a specific delivery company, while Amazon used everyone at random so that’s was a problem for me