ABSTRACT
This chapter considers the perception of the prisoner as a problem for politicians negotiating pressures from the media and the public when addressing prisoners' demands. It examines the media's role as a source of knowledge on prisoners and prison life and discusses the question of whether the media can play a positive role in maintaining prisoners' contact with the outside world. There are a number of dimensions of the media to consider: first, the media as a source of the public's knowledge of prisoners; secondly, the media's role in the campaigns for and against prisoners' rights, and thirdly, prisoners' own relationship to the media. The media can influence attitudes towards crime and punishment and ultimately influence penal policies. The accuracy of media depictions is important, but the depiction of prisoners is mostly negative. The defendants argued that the prisoners' access to books was not restricted, because they could use the library and order books they needed.
