--- --- # There’s a War on Books in Prisons by [The Aspen Institute](https://time.com/author/the-aspen-institute/) ## The Aspen Institute Feb 12, 2018 5:00 PM UTC by [The Aspen Institute](https://time.com/author/the-aspen-institute/) ## The Aspen Institute Feb 12, 2018 5:00 PM UTC **1\.** [**There’s a war on books in prisons. It needs to end.**](https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/theres-a-war-on-books-in-prisons-it-needs-to-end/2018/02/08/c31cd122-02b3-11e8-8acf-ad2991367d9d%5Fstory.html?utm%5Fterm=.c9cc900d99f5) By Nila Bala in the _Washington Post_ **2\.** [**How to teach teens about love, consent and emotional intelligence.**](https://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2018/02/08/how-to-teach-teens-about-love-consent-and-emotional-intelligence/) By Kristen Rae Lepore in _KQED MindShift_ **3\.** [**Sometimes hiring the ‘best people’ leads to the least creative results. Here’s why.**](https://aeon.co/ideas/why-hiring-the-best-people-produces-the-least-creative-results) By Scott E. Page in _Aeon_ **4\.** [**Now you can genetically test your child for disease risk. Should you?**](https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/now-you-can-genetically-test-your-child-should-you-180968012/) By Sarah Elizabeth Richards in _Smithsonian_ **5\.** [**Are referendums good for democracy?**](https://daily.jstor.org/are-referendums-good-for-democracy/) By Farah Mohammed in _JSTOR Daily_  [_The Aspen Institute_](http://www.aspeninstitute.org/) _is an educational and policy studies organization based in Washington, D.C._ Five Best: There’s a War on Books in Prisons ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"OpinionNewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/5144400/theres-a-war-on-books-in-prisons/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/5144400/theres-a-war-on-books-in-prisons/"},"headline":"There’s a War on Books in Prisons","datePublished":"2018-02-12T17:00:51.000Z","dateModified":"2026-05-11T04:58:07.438Z","description":"These are today's best ideas","url":"https://time.com/5144400/theres-a-war-on-books-in-prisons/","keywords":["Five Best Ideas","Innovation","Teens","Prisons","democracy","health","Business"],"thumbnailUrl":"","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"The Aspen Institute","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/the-aspen-institute/"}],"articleSection":"Ideas","image":[],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/ideas/","name":"Ideas"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/five-best-ideas/","name":"Five Best Ideas"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/5144400/theres-a-war-on-books-in-prisons/","name":"There’s a War on Books in Prisons"}}]}] ```