Prisons and Literacy

Program brightens kids' jail visitsContra Costa Times: August 16, 2007 by Sophia Kazmi

DUBLIN — Outside Santa Rita jail on a recent Saturday morning, it was business as usual.

Bored adult visitors were standing, some sitting, talking or listening to music, waiting for their names to be called. Depending on when their names got on the visitation list, the wait could last hours.

But this Saturday morning there was a little more life than usual.

Visiting kids, who normally would be standing with the adults, or maybe splayed on the ground playing video games, were checking out kid-friendly books like "Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing" and "Ferdinand the Bull."

Others huddled with volunteersreading stories. Some took books to their moms for a private story time.

The past few months, kids who must spend hours waiting to visit someone at the jail have had more to look forward to, thanks to librarian Lisa Harris.

The Start With A Story program was born when Harris realized just how much time kids spent in line.

Each visiting day she saw them queued up, and she thought, "There's got to be something you can do with that population," she said. "They are just standing there for hours at a time."

Harris, the energetic Alameda County librarian in charge of the inmate literacy program, persuaded county library system to give the program a try. With money scraped together for a summer's worth of books, and permission to operate Saturday and Sunday mornings, Harris has created a simple but effective program that may be the first of its kind in the nation. READ ON

Audio Slideshow: Start With a Story

H.R. 1593: The Second Chance Act of 2007would provide reentry funding on the state and local level to support former prisoners' needs for housing, mental health and substance abuse treatment, education, employment and rebuilding family and community ties. If passed, H.R. 1593 would reduce recidivism and increase public safety by addressing the needs of prisoners preparing to return to communities from the criminal justice system.

HR 1593 Links

~ Washington Watch
~ Eric Digests

Read On @ Your Local Library: CalCat or WorldCat

Goddess of Justice:
The Condemned Children of America's Hardcore Illiterates
Gisela Gasper Fitzgerald
PublishAmerica, 2004