Torres: Perplexing, periodical puzzles prohibited in prison

Gary Bennett has not received his FLORIDA TODAY newspaper in nearly four weeks, apparently meaning efforts to bust him out of prison have been thwarted.

Puzzled? So was I. Just keep reading.

You may remember Bennett as the subject of the first season of our award-winning podcast "Murder on the Space Coast." The 66-year-old Palm Bay man has served 39 years of his life sentence for a murder I don't believe he committed.

But that's not the issue here. The concern is that prison officials have refused to deliver Bennet's FLORIDA TODAY because of the daily word puzzle that appears in the paper called Boggle BrainBusters. The reason?

Well, it seems the Florida Department of Corrections' Literary Review Committee cannot let inmates have access to any literature (yes, newspapers count) if there is something coded in a language not decipherable by staff. Their worry is that the code — in this case a word jumble that appears in newspapers around the nation — could contain a message to a particular inmate or the population in general about breaking out, rioting or some other security breach.

Boggle BrainBusters comes from the Hasbro board game, Boggle, and the daily puzzle is provided by the Tribune Content Agency.

Now despite my protestations over Bennett's incarceration and belief in his innocence, I'm skeptical that FLORIDA TODAY'S parent company, Gannett, is trying to send Bennett — or any other inmate for that matter — secret messages hidden in some daily puzzle. No, it sounds more like an idea that Dan Brown might have conjured for his code-breaking, symbologist, protagonist Robert Langdon before realizing it was too ludicrous.

More: Torres: Wrongfully convicted William Dillon's inspiring story banned from Florida prisons

I reached out to Paul Walker, deputy communications director with the Department of Corrections, to see what was going on.

"The Florida Department of Corrections (FDC) commitment to public safety includes taking all necessary measures to ensure the safety and wellbeing of our staff and all inmates in FDC’s custody," Walker wrote in an email. "Inmates in FDC correctional institutions have access to thousands of publications, magazines and books. Admissible reading materials are governed by Florida Administrative Code 33-501.401."

I looked up the code and there it was. Restricted literature includes publications "written in code or otherwise written in a manner that is not reasonably subject to interpretation by Department staff as to meaning or intent."

Bennett is not the only inmate affected and many other newspapers have complained about this exact issue. When I asked about simply tearing the puzzle out every morning, I was told there would be all types of censorship issues if staffers in prison mailrooms suddenly had the power to determine arbitrarily what specific parts of a periodical inmates should and shouldn't be able to read rather than follow the administrative code and ban the entire paper.

So, with apologies to Dr. Seuss, I puzzled and puzzled 'til my puzzler was sore trying to come up with a solution and came up with three.

The first is my favorite, though the least likely to happen. The Department of Corrections can either train existing employees to solve the puzzles quickly or hire new staffers proficient at these things. Maybe the test for new hires should include the Sunday New York Times crossword puzzle. My mom is great at sudoku and word searches, in case the DOC goes for this option.

The second option would be for newspapers like ours to drop the puzzle. This is unlikely to happen as I have been witness to the deluge of angry phone calls whenever we mess up and the daily puzzle doesn't make it into print.

The third option is for the Florida Department of Corrections Literary Review Committee to amend their policy to allow for newspaper puzzles to make it through the mailroom and into the hands of the prisoners who subscribe to that publication. Nah...makes too much sense.

Contact Torres at jtorres@floridatoday.com. You can follow him on X @johnalbertorres or on Facebook at facebook.com/FTjohntorres.

This article originally appeared on Florida Today: Florida inmate kept from newspaper because daily puzzle poses threat.