Censorship In Jaycee Lee Dugard's A Stolen Life

Imagine if your life story got banned because it was too graphic and contained excessive coarse language. Well this is the exact situation Jaycee Lee Dugard found herself in with her novel A Stolen Life. Although most believe Dugard should not be in this situation due to the fact that her novel reiterates the ‘stranger danger’ concept, she has a right to tell her story, and the ban keeps her kidnapper’s crime a secret. This novel should be free to read without challenge because it demonstrates the danger of interacting with strangers, it allows Jaycee to reveal her what happened in captivity, and banning it only protects the kidnapper. Censorship is the practice of limiting access to information, ideas or books in order to prevent knowledge or freedom of thought as well

Instead of allowing Dugard to exploit Phillip for her torturous captivity, school boards want to ban it for language. Hiding this novel conceals the fact that he kidnapped and raped an 11-year old girl almost daily. The only reason this novel is banned is because it’s the truth of what Garrido did to a poor girl, which was offensive and graphic, she did not make it up to better her story. Jaycee explained in the beginning of her novel her reasons for writing this, and the main reason she did was, “Phillip Garrido believes no one should find out what he did to an 11-year old girl… I believe I shouldn’t be ashamed for what happened to me, and I want Phillip Garrido to know that I no longer have to keep his secret” (Dugard 1). If this novel stays banned, no one will discover the horrifying reality of Garrido’s crime. Phillip will have his crime protected because of the coarse language and graphic images he created. Instead people can realize why Garrido has his 463 year sentence, and save Jaycee and her family from continuing to keep his awful