Inmates to be allowed MP3 players but will restrict music

The US Bureau of Prisons is unveiling a program that will allow many of its more than 200,000 inmates to carry MP3 players, packed with personalized music lists, to pass the time.

The music program, currently being tested at a women's unit in West Virginia, is expected to expand to the rest of the system this year, bureau spokeswoman Traci Billingsley says. The devices, ubiquitous in the free world, will be sold in prison commissaries. There is an important catch: Although inmates can choose from a song list of about 1 million titles, the list will be monitored to exclude "explicit" tracks, including material such as obscene or racially charged language.