Why Having Books Behind Bars Is So Important via Teen Vogue

Why Having Books Behind Bars Is So Important

Literacy is key

Teen Vogue: 10.31.2017 by Brittney McNamara

@unprisonproject

For young people, navigating the criminal justice system can be extremely difficult — and that's especially the case when you can't read or can't read well. According to DoSomething.org, 85% of young people who face trial in the juvenile justice system are functionally illiterate, meaning the can't read at the level required to do most jobs or cope with many everyday situations. More than 60% of all inmates are also functionally illiterate.

This matters, according to The Literacy Center, because people cannot read or cannot read well have trouble finding a job, something being incarcerated can also make it hard to do once released. And a Department of Justice report established an association between literacy and crime. But Deborah Jiang Stein, author of Prison Baby and founder of the unPrison Project, said this could change if we simply provided books for young inmates and those at risk of incarceration.

"It's a quiet fact, it's really not glamorous related to incarceration. It's interesting because it doesn't feel like this big activist change. It's so small and yet so big, it's a shocking number, isn't it?" Jiang Stein tells Teen Vogue. "There's a number, something like, readership goes up 50% if a kid owns a book."

═════════►

In order help the issue before it starts, Jiang Stein's organization, the unPrison Project, provides books to women in prison to read to their children on visiting day. That way, according to the organization, the children who own books are more likely to be literate, which could play a role in helping them avoid being vulnerable to incarceration themselves.

This story is part of Kids Incarcerated, a Teen Vogue series on youth incarceration in the United States for National Youth Justice Awareness Month.  READ MORE >>