GLENWOOD SPRINGS, Colo. — A county jail in Colorado doesn't allow inmates to read newspapers — except for USA Today.

The Garfield County Jail commander says the jail bans inmates from receiving local newspapers because they make prisoners unsafe. The commander told the Aspen Daily News that inmates can be targeted for violence if other inmates learn in the newspaper what others have been convicted of.

Jail commander Steve Hopple says that USA Today is the only newspaper allowed because it carries "well-rounded national news."

The newspaper ban has been in effect about a year, but jail officials just this week confirmed the ban to the Aspen newspaper.

Local newspapers cause a problem and "to make it easy," Hopple said the Garfield County Sheriff's Office, which runs the jail, only allows USA Today, which provides "well-rounded national news, and it's fairly comprehensive."

Hopple said that if local papers were allowed, prisoners in the news for notorious crimes such as child sex abuse could face dangerous prison conditions.

"It's for the safety of our inmates," Hopple said. "I know that's hard to quite fathom. But as our population grows, we run out of space for special-needs inmates and those special-needs inmates' safety can be placed at risk."

In 2006, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Beard v. Banks that, in the interest of security, a prison could ban newspapers and magazines for inmates in a segregated unit for prisoners designated as especially difficult or dangerous. In that case, a Pennsylvania inmate challenged the ban, saying it infringed on his First Amendment rights.