Hi. I’m Sarah Ross. An artist and educator and a member
of U-C Books to Prisoners and Education Beyond Bars, a
prison education initiative.
When I moved to Illinois less than 2 years ago, i never
thought i'd find my first teaching job at an Illinois
state prison. I also never imagined that a simple class
assignment--writing a paper about an artist--could have
turned into such a challenge.
First it took the efforts of the prison librarian and the educational
coordinator, to get special passes to the students for
permission to the library. Even though access to a
library is a basic right in prison, frequency is not, as
only 25 men per cell block can go at a time. The next
step was coordinating when a prisoner would be allowed
to go to the library; movement from place to place as an
incarcerated person is a monitored activity. The final
piece of the puzzle was getting books for prisoners to
read in order to write the paper. Illinois cut funding
for education and educational materials like library
books, throughout the 1990's. Although studies prove
again and again that educational opportunities to
prisoners reduce recidivism, creates a safer prison
environments for inmates and staff alike and increase
the probability of a prisoner's family seeking higher
education, legislatures find it a popular vote-getting
activity to be tough on crime, which translates to large
budgets for prisons but minimal funding for community
restoration or rehabilitation. Thus leaving behind
incarcerated men, women and children who will re-join
our communities as our neighbors, co-workers, friends.
So this simple assignment of writing a short paper,
for me, turned into a brief education of state
abandonment. I realized I had to find the books needed
for student's research. I also had to again coordinate
with my colleagues in the prison to get the books in and
available at the library. Not just anyone can donate
books to a prison.
This landed me at the doors of a local group Urbana
Champaign Books to Prisoners, an organization that sends
books for free to Illinois prisoners. They also supply
books to and staff libraries for, inmates at the two
Champaign County Jails. UC Books to Prisoner is an all
volunteer group founded just 2 years ago. As of today,
they have sent over 10,000 books to 2000 people in
Illinois prisons, in response to letters from prisoners.
Like many non-profit groups, Books to Prisoners depends
on donations and events like books sales to raise money
for shipping the 250 packages of books they send out
each month.
Beginning Thursday, April 12, through Sunday, April
15, Books to Prisoners will host a huge book sale at the
Independent Media Center in the Urbana Post Office
Building in Downtown Urbana.
Please visit to browse and learn more about this
tremendous local resource that is looking to educate and
improve all of our communities into the future! More
information can be found at the web site:
books2prisoners.org. That's books, the number 2,
prisoners dot org. |
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