Why prison libraries matter for inmates, jailers and book donors

Why prison libraries matter for inmates, jailers and book donors

Deseret News: 1.12.2018 by Stephen Dark

It's 9.15 a.m. when a dark green, 1993 Toyota truck that's logged 160,000 miles pulls into Tooele County jail parking lot. A tall, thin woman in khaki cargo pants and a black T-shirt gets out to unload boxes of donated books and cart them into the men’s jail library.

Prison Library Project

Once the fiction and nonfiction have been mingled with the existing stock, she admires the 1,300 titles.

“I’m into pretty. Pretty books are happy books,” says Toby Lafferty, who then bids the books farewell that October morning. “Bye guys, see you next time.” She often sends “good energy to the books. They’re going into places that are quite dark.”

Men and women in 35 prisons and jails in 13 states nationwide depend on Lafferty and her Millcreek-based nonprofit, Books Inside, for a monthly supply of books to expand often decrepit libraries. Last year, Books Inside mailed 23,000 books to incarceration facilities. In Utah alone, she supplies seven jails and created libraries from nothing in the Tooele County and Kane County jails.

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Her services come at a critical time for prison libraries across the nation. In 1992, the American Library Association released its “standards” for prison libraries, which included recommending 15 books per inmate, not including the federally mandated law libraries for prisons.

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“Sixty percent of prisoners go back if they don’t get an education in prison,” she says.

James LaRue, director of the American Library Association’s office of intellectual freedom, concurs with Shirley’s pessimistic email.

“The problem is prison officials have a great discretion over the access of content and there’s been abuses,” he says.

In November 2017, Texas came under scrutiny for the arbitrary nature in banning 10,000 titles from its prison. “Where’s Waldo,” was banned, but not “Mein Kampf.” LaRue said he polled association prison librarians prior to talking to the Deseret News to gauge any progress in improving prisoner access to books and the quality of libraries. The answer was no.  READ MORE >>