INSIDE

2009-11-26T11:34:00.000-08:00

On the Stump for Jails Service

A couple months ago, I spoke to a class of future librarians and library technicians. The topic was Jails: Human Warehouse or Human Community. My goal was to present library service as a way to celebrate the vital human community that exists inside each Jail. The community includes inmates, deputies and all the support staff of various programs. That inner community, of course, extends outward to the families and neighborhoods left behind and to which most inmates will return. Libraries acknowledge the interacting communities and serve the reader "where they are" at any given time. If they are sentenced to Jail, they have an even greater need for Community support in the form of Books and Magazines!

Warehouse vs. Community

The Warehouse model occurs whenever human groups trade in altruism for efficiency. If there is no curiosity or interest in the needs of others, a systematic selfishness takes over. "The System" is bound to exclude, isolate or judge what does not serve its end. Any person who interferes with the efficient, regulated flow of people and machines in this system is sidelined until he or she or it is back in "compliance." Community comes to be seen as a privilege earned and protected by rigid conventions, or, worse still, gates and guns.

Questionable or QUESTIONING individuals are targeted until they demonstrate their allegiance and compliance. Young people or people with addictive behaviors are put aside and criminalized, rather than heard and welcomed into the "Club" of "Functioning Adults." Why do "Functional, Efficient Societies" depend on Jails and Sheriffs to house their outcasts? Of course, some behaviors endanger and victimize others in the community, but the cycle of endangerment and victimization is not addressed by warehousing or punishment, but by impassioned engagement and CARE! Torture and Forced Labor are outlawed by constitutional amendments, but Detention and Storage accomplish the same ends: exclusion, isolation and judgment. For many, this corrective "Time Out" becomes long years of "Time In" custody.

People, unlike books, don't sit on a shelf in silence. They grow and change; they are capable of a thousand new thoughts and behaviors. The Sheriff's Department is known for its commitment to public safety, but their twin responsibility is less appreciated or well-known. They are charged to house, inform, educate and inspire the human beings who come into their care. The library is proud to serve this human community and intervene so people are not warehoused on our watch.

P.S.

A couple weeks after my talk, I received an EXCELLENT DONATION from one of the students in the class! Comic books are wildly popular and serve to bridge low literacy with story, as well as satisfying artistic needs.

2009-11-26T11:05:00.000-08:00

Joke's on Us!

Clinic deputies and nurses got a laugh at our expense today. Always eager to get our books into the proper hands, we figured "Pregnancy for Dummies" should go to the Ob-Gyn clinic. I asked the nurse if she would take it down to the pregnant inmates and she gave me a sideways look with a questioning, "Okay." She then glanced at the group of deputies, saying, "Don't start!" Everyone was laughing before the humor in the book's title hit me over the head. Dumb me, I thought it was a SCIENCE BOOK! :-) Guess I need to lower the dose of my "Sincerity" prescription.

2009-10-29T17:16:00.000-07:00

Empowerment, Entertainment, Enlightenment,
never on backorder! delivered every time.

Here are a few scenes from the Jail (Fall 2009.)

An inmate expressed how much she missed her family after receiving a letter at mail call. Would a book of poems or a drama with a character struggling to find peace and respect help her with her homesickness?

A word list found in a library book included: "stressed, recognized, appreciate, assistance" and ended with "punish, advantage, promote, ignorant, conscience, frequently, stubborn, alter...." These random words say so much to us about a person's mind as he deals with being locked up--though they just showed up on a spelling/look-up list.

A man may practice touch point massage on himself to ease the pain of injuries received before he came to jail. The information packet helps him memorize where these massage points lie.

Questions of "Why am I here," are just as important as "Why am I in here?" Many inmates took the denser, more difficult spiritual quest books from the cart. One young person took the Dalai Lama's introduction to Buddhism and may find a new form of Enlightenment this month.

Deputies and inmates recount their favorite books and what they like about different characters. Ludlum's Bourne Series always ranks high on everyone's list, though some other Ludlum titles don't get such rave reviews. Same goes for Cussler and Wilbur Smith. Ah, the lure of fame makes every candle flickah!

A woman scores a copy of "Sail" by James Patterson, which is the only book by this author she hasn't read. How lucky that her desired book didn't wind up in another house that day. She'll have the entertainment she craves, even if all her books are finished before the next library visit.

The reading group formed of GED students is now supplied with personal copies of "The Once and Future King," by T. H. White. How cool it would be to metamorphose into Arthur's hawk and soar right out of that jail. (At least as Merlin proposed, shape-shifting to live as other animals and learn their secret powers. Will these students sense a new empowerment as they read of Arthur's exploits and blunders.

A fan of graphic novels walks in a trance into his housing unit, paging through two issues of Dark Angel, the adventures of a young swordsman from Japan. Another young man uses his choice of three items by grabbing three Marvel magazines.

2009-09-24T17:32:00.000-07:00

Recent Picks and Pans:

Service to a blind inmate has taught me a great deal about library collections: what appeals, what falls flat. It has also given me a renewed interest in individual needs. This inmate enjoyed Star Wars, Phantom Menace: Episode One on an Mp3 player and wanted the sequel. Some books from our Braille collection (Harry Potter series) were okay but not exactly right. He'd like them in audio. Thanks to the techies in Inmate Services, he can hear them on an MP3 player!!!

With a huge group to serve, individual preferences are often overlooked. We do find ways to keep individual picks in mind when we pack our books, load the book carts or do face to face service. We can often match a request for author, if not specific title.

In a public branch, a user can return again and again and develop a relationship with staff to gain exactly what they need or "more of the same."

Precise matching of material to user is very problematic in a jail setting. Yet, surprisingly, if we bring a wide enough variety of the best we have, the needs of individual inmates are often met.

A recent conversation with an inmate proved the importance of selecting meaningful material--not just the latest fad. This man had scored a copy of, "I'm Okay, You're Okay" from the book cart. He loved the book and it had sparked self-reflection on his part.

This simple yet profound interaction of between librarian and user, book and mind says a great deal about the importance of libraries in jails. Here is an inmate who is searching for wisdom and sees others as important as himself. He asked for many classics and just plain good stories, as well. He obviously cares about other people and may spread the sanity contained in, "I'm Okay, You're Okay," to others in his "house."

Every community of people trades stories, the jail is no exception and the library service plays a role in sparking the imagination of others. A young man in minimum has been taking children's stories we bring to the cart and embellishing on them with both drawings and his words and telling stories to his bunk mates--just like they were gathered around a camp fire.

We're in the business of art education, as well! As our team was restocking the book cart in Maximum Security, an inmate asked his cellie to show us some of his pencil portraits. He showed us a curvaceous fantasy woman and an excellent depiction of Michael Jackson. This was his way of expressing his need for Art books. Luckily some good material was donated and we delivered it today to his deputy: an excellent book on the art and sculpture of Florence and an exhibition book on Vermeer.

Were there any pans? One can assume the 3-book stacks tied up in old waist-bands to use as push-up blocks are NOT the pods' favorite books. I've been waiting for the right reader to latch onto the biography of Jim and Tammy Faye Baker, but that person hasn't come along. I'm not sure if anyone is willing to be seen holding the hairy romance by C.J. Barry, Unearthed, Unraveled, Unleashed! but some inmate is sure to surprise me.

2009-07-24T14:11:00.000-07:00

Gut Feeling

The quest to be righteous after doing "wrong" is not only the domain of the chaplain. It's how the wrong occurred in the first place that interests many inmates and motivates their reading requests. Social science, religion, philosophy, history and poetry fit the bill.

Several weeks ago, the library team gave the book, Fire in the Belly, to an inmate in Max. He asked for a similar book yesterday. It is an ongoing challenge to find ennobling books that match the pace and energy of the wild rides and thrillers we provide.

This book analyzes violence and love, a hot reading topic in jail. The struggle to learn self-restraint is incredibly hard in a free society, and this book doesn't offer an easy fix. There are a thousand methods to suppress behaviors and sublimate energies in order to conform to the norm, but few manifestos to stand up and stand out as individuals. After several years in this job, I wrote the following:

Jail: Whose violence

has been quelled,

yours against me

or my own gut feeling?

The fire in the gut (and the mind) should stay lit, especially behind bars. This reader reminded me of that fact.

2009-06-29T23:30:00.000-07:00

Laughin' and Cryin' (Vocabulary Lessons)

Okay. I'm not street smart. My jail lingo is limited. I'm dumb enough to say "jaybird" instead of "jaycat." Not that the library staff needs to diss or label anyone as crazy! I don't need to throw this word around like deputies or inmates do. There are a thousand reasons to feel or be crazy, so it's good to know this word. Any one of us--dropped into a jail cell for 48 hours--would discover our inner jaycat, for sure!

Enough said. The felines never cease to surprise. One young man stood by the book cart and said he was on hiatus. I asked, "From where?" He said, "The Streets!" Funny guy, he added that he was "on sabbatical" in jail! I hope he has TENURE and they hold his high-paying professorship while he's in here!

Next stop: "Caucasian." Today a guy wanted help spelling the word. We consulted the diminutive dictionary sold in canteen. No go. The dictionary was designed for primary school. In our budgetary heyday, we brought American Century collegiate dictionaries. So this inmate and I did the old "sound-it-out" routine, separating syllables into "Cauc" and "asian."

Glad it wasn't "supercalifragilistickexpealidocious."

The team encountered another inmate. The deputy was reading one of our entertainment magz and asked the inmate if he liked Mary Poppins, he said, "Sure." After a some good-natured scoffing, the guy said, "I like the way she sings. [Julie Andrews.] Just because I look like this (pointing to shaved head and jail clothes,) doesn't mean I don't know things. I have a brain." Turns out he'd spent his whole childhood in juvenile detention centers or camps throughout the state, but that is where he lived. That's not his LIFE.

It was great to hear this young man's spirited defense of his mind. This is exactly why the Library opens its doors every day to people who are free or goes behind locked doors to those who are incarcerated! We can't bring in a Broadway musical, but we can offer him a ladder to paint his sky with stars.

2009-06-05T10:32:00.000-07:00

We belong here

Before there was history, there was presence.

Absence called forth fact. Proof of ownership,

evidence of love, even the sacred cover of

"identity" defend against the loss of all

I am.

Children teach us presence, but we

bind them to our histories, stifle them with

codes of conduct, vocabularies of regret.

Warriors, note that, when you aim at

a child.

Any enemy who appears in your sights

was here first as a child. Every man and woman

crawled on this planet face down

in the earth, licked it, loved it

long before

we called it "God's creation" or demeaned

it as some absent, empty space. We belong

here, all of us belong here. War is hatred for

our presence in this place.

________________________________________

Dan's response to reading The Wars by Timothy Findley.

The story is buoyed up by an ocean of regret and sadness--the ocean on which the protagonist sails to yet another Troy. Futility, error, cruelty, love. A very great book with fascinating, intermingled narratives.

"The Wars (1978), Findley's most successful novel, has been translated into numerous languages and was made into a film. The Wars uses the device of a story-within-a-story to illustrate how a personality transcends elemental forces even while being destroyed by them."

Review retrieved on June 5, 2009 from

http://www.chapters.indigo.ca/books/

Wars-Timothy-Findley/9780140241167-item.html

?pticket=stvbtzaxo4t0jj55dhvrqp55iDoN8B23WuaIlSY2KCvtpjvzElo%3d

2009-05-29T00:26:00.000-07:00

Captain Kirk was spotted at the Jail with his hair-dryer in hand.

Boy, was he Lookin' Good in that butterscotch Tee. Not to mention the Vulcan beauty at his side

Watch out Trekkies, the Captain's gonna shampoo the Crew!

Even the Jails team gets more Star Trek than we can use. But there's always some die-hard fans of the Federation aboard our mother ship.

2009-05-27T17:08:00.000-07:00

Our Great Books Program.

(Mortimer Adler fans, beware.)

The Jails Team had a "great books" moment during yesterday's service. It's when we look up toward the sky (or cement ceiling) and close our eyes, amazed by the lollapalooza in front of us. You might see a simple book cart! It might seem like "slim pickins'" compared to a public library, but there is always something "impressive" about the combination of books that wind up on our shelves or are requested by our readers.

A young man asks for Tom Sawyer. His cellmate reads Russian, and turns in Romeo and Juliet, saying it was too difficult. Can we find some Shakespeare in Russian? Another sweeps up all the Jackie Collins he can find. A person wants some fiction about the street and we find a copy of Black Girl Lost. It takes some convincing that Donald Goines will substitute for Iceberg Slim.

Another man is intrigued by a book on the philosophical backgrounds of Black Identity. A person holds Brave New World and wants to know how it compares to Orwell's 1984. Janet Evanovich has several people exclaiming how fun she is to read. Someone chides us for not bringing Stephen Cannell, and says he's been asking and asking. He has very specific tastes and is always trying out new authors, but can never get enough from the "first-come/first-serve" method which obtains at the book cart.

A bilingual reader kneels at the cart with Burro Genio, by Victor Villasenor, in his hands. Then he comes around to my side and quietly asks asks what the Aeneid is about. The little parrot on my shoulder wants to say, "This is a central text to Western Civilization." Is that any kind of recommendation? What IS the book about? It's a great story of honor and loyalty. It's a character-study like a novel but written in beautiful poetry. It's a fantasy of historical and spiritual conflict. I say some mish-mash of the above, nothing to do justice to this poem. Luckily, he decides to take it and give it a try.

2009-05-21T07:33:00.000-07:00

Hot to the Touch!

Newark Library ...

has just made our magazine shelves sizzle with a great donation. It's true, the covers may soon be plastered to jail cell walls, (with the possible exception of the Buddha,) but that beats lying face down in your recycling bin!

Our local 1/2 Price book store also keeps us in the good graces of comic book fans at the jail. Check this out:

2009-05-10T20:17:00.000-07:00

Cardboard Box Art!

In the land of latex, creativity comes in surprising forms. The Jails Team found this box during a book delivery. Someone who likes high-speed driving and sports cars tagged this box with some cool designs.

2009-05-10T20:07:00.000-07:00

Service without Guile

Service without guile is as important as service with a smile. "Skillful deceit," as Webster defines it, finds its way into the work-place in a dazzling array of behaviors, some of them functional and some dysfunctional.

This post won't bother separating the useful from the obstructive, the "good" from the "bad." (Guile often seems beneficial on the surface. Efficiency often improves when the restless workers are in conflict with each other, vying for approval and respect within the hierarchy. Colonial power structures maintained control that way and flowered into vast bureaucracies where guile took the place of labor.) Any institution can become this way, where we end up workin' for the man, rather than workin' as the man. The work of pleasing and performing is not the work, itself. Why is dishonest behavior needed in the work-place at all. Who needs it?

Library Patrons do not benefit from guile; they genuinely seek honest, open smiles from employees who offer friendly directions or guidance through the library environment.

If staff goes outside the library to provide service (as it does to our incarcerated patrons at the jail,) deceptive charm and the judgmental agenda are noticeable a mile away. We are not judge or jury. The inmates "time" was assigned by others. We may want to help, but we are not on a rehabilitative task force. Our job is to create library-patron relationships with our user group, a neutrality promoted by ALA members who serve Special Populations. For incarcerated readers--like anyone else--true help is welcome, while the sharp-toned agents of Self-Improvement are viewed with suspicion.

A few months ago, some guys asked our team if we were missionaries! Was it the starched white shirts and black neckties?

Say we're just stressed out and feelin' stingy. Even the brittle, stressed-out minds of people bound by a code of conduct (which usually includes high expectations of others,) can disrupt service and antagonize patrons. Library users in jail have heightened sensitivity to punitive attitudes and know when rules are motivated by fair-play or enforced by false pride. The latter generates resistance all around.

The Jails Team must periodically assess their own behaviors and feelings to see if their service is punitive and constrained (to please hidden agenda) or generous and responsive to what the users want. Effective management recognizes guile and does not reward it or foster the confusion by saying, "Change is Good." Effective leaders help troubled teams step forward to honest self-appraisal and authentic adaptation to what is real.

2009-05-10T19:35:00.000-07:00

Spring has Sprung

The grass never grows under our bookcarts.

Here is a typical spread of "Returns" from a day at the Jail. Three houses or cell blocks receive and return books on a given day. 5 carts stuffed top to bottom with paperbacks prove how important it is to have support staff in place "back at the ranch." All people involved are fairly flexible and pitch in to help each other.

Once the books are unloaded, organized on carts and reshelved, the team immediately begins to select and pack books for the next visit. This ebb and flow from the collection (with intensive weeding every time) is routine. Large depletions result in empty shelves, then suddenly we need overflow carts because the shelves are full.

Both inmates and deputies help us keep the books in motion. Some podworkers even separate damaged paperbacks from those in good condition, making it easier to deal with copious returns.

We all find ways to keep the springs in working order.

2009-04-06T02:33:00.000-07:00

Send Poems...

about I miss you & I love you.

2009-04-03T13:17:00.000-07:00

Gold Country

Never underestimate the value of a used bookstore near the library. Our local Half Price Books has been the motherlode for paperback prospectors on the Jails Staff.

The great thing about this source is the minds behind the boxes. Store staff is well-trained to spot books of value or interest for the store. After many years of ringing up our purchases, the staff has developed expertise about our collection and is able to select appropriate donations.

Worth their Weight in....

Such expeditions are worthwhile, as you see from the pictures above. The boxes filled our van to capacity. We now have a rich vein to mine when the gold disappears from shelves inside "The Fort." (These days, our paperback supply is more stable than gold in the U.S. Treasury.)

Storage Area

Our shelf space is limited so we need outside storage. (Let's call this "offshore" area, Dubai, though we're not raking in untaxed billions by keeping our books outdoors!) Paperbacks get damaged if they bake too long under a hot California sun.

Jails Only

Of course, a little sign is required to distinguish our storage area from the general donation area. Ten-ton deposits of musty "Condensed Books" or slick computer manuals don't match our "user needs."

2009-03-25T11:26:00.000-07:00

High output librarians, low input funding!

You have to laugh, so as not to weep and wail.

The jails library service runs on a shoestring, due to incredible public participation via donation and student volunteers who help us process the books. It also has a fairly reliable funding source: the surcharge on commissary items at the jail. As long as people are sentenced to jail, buy items from commissary while they're incarcerated and demand access to books, we're in business. That means the library can pay for some hot new books and the staff to buy, pack, deliver and retrieve them after they are read.

But what about other kinds of library programs? One of the jails team is a grad student in library school and gets to hear the latest buzz from students around the state of California. Funding puddles are drying up. For some reason, libraries are never irrigated in the proper way. They are not guaranteed a flow from the source high in our intellectual mountains. Why is such scarcity the prevailing model in such an incredibly diverse mental landscape? Why does California not commit itself to economic and intellectual growth!

In a posting to a fellow library school student, I wrote:

May the funding roll in!! Part of recovering from the Pete Wilson cutbacks in 1993 was to adopt an "abundance" over "scarcity" philosophy. If citizens start to feel surrounded by riches--not expensive luxuries--but beautiful necessities, the economy will improve. The stingy people will move back into the background where they always live, profiting from doom and gloom. Let the generous, transformative people (like Eleanor Roosevelt)...

take charge.

2009-03-12T18:39:00.000-07:00

Life is good in Jail when...

a Deputy convinces an inmate to read Kurt Vonnegut;

some pod workers tell the librarian she's "a bright light" when she arrives with the new books;

a citizen of the county shares his life-time collection of National Geographics (in mo/yr order!) for inmates who love 'em;

British "Bad Girl" actress, Debra Stephenson, does time at our facility for a documentary on incarceration and donates books to the real inmates she had to leave behind;

American stars shine just as brightly when Jada Pinkett Smith sends a donation of magazines!

Life is good when the right book gets into the right person's hands.

2009-02-09T00:10:00.000-08:00

This calls for...

Steve and Alice did it again -- filled up our loading dock with bags of marvel-ocious books. So many bags of riches appeared, we called in Hercules -- our Marvel Mystic Superhero -- to sort 'em all out.

Steve and Alice, both respectable titans of the library world, have helped the Jails Service in countless ways.

Steve is our bookmobile librarian who regularly distributes books to women at the local federal prison. He also dons the Jails Librarian hat on occasion and takes books to the county jail. His service covers the last 30 years, so he's lugged a ton of books in his day and has the muscles (and bruises) to prove it. This Marvel action figure often wears a beret, adding a certain "joie de livre" to the day's deliveries!

Alice moved on from her stint as Jails Librarian to a neighboring county, where she developed a network of donors who fill bags or boxes over time in their own homes. Alice then collects the bags from these donors and brings them our way. She also attends booksales and gathers paperbacks on behalf of our inmates. Besides her own audacity to scare up such a wide range of books, her car also deserves superhero status. It rides so low to the ground, it barely clears the bumps as donation day approaches!

Hercules is on call for all future deliveries.

photo courtesy of Mystic Comics #3 (June 1940). Retrieved on February 8, 2009 from http://www.geocities.com/jjnevins/hercules.html

2009-01-15T07:23:00.000-08:00

What's she doing in there?

She's reading! Fifteen to twenty percent of the inmates served by Jails Library Service are women. An additional program, operated by Extension Services, serves women at the Federal Correctional Institute. The reading needs of women are unique, though they overlap with men's interests in most areas. Special attention is required in book selection and the staff has great fun meeting their needs.

The wider community needs to hear how much their efforts are appreciated by women in jail. The "Jails Team" gets to see the smiles and watch people crowd around when book cart arrives. Librarians get to hear the hilarious reviews of books, "I was so bored I had to read Jackie Collins!" and field interesting questions about science, history and biography. But the Jails Staff never forgets that our team includes all the Branch Library staffs, Friends Groups, Teen volunteers and generous patrons who donate material "to the cause." This extended family is especially important in the library service to women.

Magazines are essential components of this service. High fashion from Cosmo to Vogue, Seventeen, Ebony and Jet, Vanidades, Latina, People and National Geographic in English or Spanish, Vibe and Rolling Stone, Smithsonian and Discover, Bon Appetit and all the special topics covered by periodicals provide a great source of entertainment and information in the jail.

Perfume samples are an added perk we provide on occasion to the women in county jails. These have been meticulously culled from the magazines by our sneezing, sniffling posse of student volunteers. We pity the poor kids who have to smell this stuff! The bundles are nearly asphyxiating in the closed container of the jails van, but the buzz of excitement when they are handed out to the women makes the perfumery worthwhile. (We often bring Suskind's dark novel, Perfume, to show just how far "scent" can travel!)

Magazine recycling takes a strange twist at the jail. The women give origami a run for its money with the art form of "folded paper brooms." Small squares are joined together to form long sticks and sweepers. These brooms are used to sweep out cells and under bunks. The practice is not viewed fondly by the Jail Staff, who prefer to keep paper OUT of the living areas, and are wary of "weapon-making." However, the brooms are intricate and the library staff is always impressed by the inmates' ingenuity.

A group of women recently spoke with the staff while we restocked their book carts. These readers rekindled our staff's desire to maintain excellent service and work harder on book selection. While blushing romances and cutesie mysteries are popular (and plentiful in donations,) women continue to demand a full range of fiction and non-fiction. In fiction, they share the men's preference for Evanovich, Teri Woods, Sheldon, Collins, Zane, and Iyanla Vanzant. They like Patterson and Deaver, and it's a toss-up between J.R. Ward and J.K. Rowling! (Stephenie Meyer's Twilight hasn't really taken off.) Real life stories of adversity and humor are always welcome, from Sister Souljah to Sherman Alexie and Luis Rodriguez. Lesbian authors speak with courage and humor, or address the anger which many female inmates feel. In other words, incarcerated women want fantasy and reality mixed with intelligence and wit.

These "hot" stories, even the wild rides of Urban Fiction, engage a person's interest and often spark curiosity about other topics. People with long jail terms often develop a passion for non-fiction topics and challenge the librarians to bring more variety of history, science, poetry and biography.

The bleak and boring time between visiting hours or meals, job duties or pill call, are often made less depressing by library books. Besides the comments of inmates, Deputies and Technicians remark how reading material improves morale. One Sheriff hollered across the yard that inmates need more books now that they have more "pod time" (pod=common areas outside their cells.) Not only do books and magazines break the monotony felt by individuals; they spark many conversations and discussions between inmates!

Library service to incarcerated women is also important because it reconnects them to children, spouses, partners and parents outside jail. Reading for Life, a separate library program, administers the successful "Start with a Story" program, where volunteers both read stories and give away children's books to young people during visiting hours. The entire Sheriff's staff has been enthusiastic about this program, which complements other Inmate Service programs about parenting, job-preparedness, drug-counseling and GED. Jails Library Service supports these programs at every turn.

The library staff wants to thank friends behind the scenes who lift all those bags of magazines and books in and out of their cars, entrusting their donations to the local library, placing their beloved books in other people's hands. Donations make up the bulk of our collection and fill every cart at the jail. Women come running to the door and smiling when the librarians arrive--always grateful to their friends "on the outside."

2008-12-23T00:43:00.000-08:00

Greatest Book Ever!

Your Jail Librarians made a spectacular find today. The library bin turned out to contain--hold onto your keyboard--The Mammoth Book of Maneaters. This book recounts true stories and cautionary tales about man-eating animals.

Can you imagine the chills and thrills of sitting in a jail cell, perhaps leaning against a cold stone wall, reading over 250 stories about "creatures that prey on human flesh?"

As you will see in the picture, the staff had to display Maneaters in a place of prominence. Prominence on a jail bookcart means proximity to James Patterson, Stuart Woods, Walter Mosley and Mario Puzo. Even a Sicilian can get on the wrong side of the snake family or get double-crossed by a crocodile.

(BTW, beloved Book Donaters, this is just the kind of book we like to find tucked in your paper bags. Any other author pictured here will help us out, as well. The goal is to give our readers hours of shivering pleasure.)

2008-12-11T17:04:00.000-08:00

Jail, not Yale!

Today, the library team had a request from a young man in an isolation cell. His voice, muffled by the heavy metal door, said he needed "intellectual stimulation." Our view through the narrow slit of a window confirmed that fact--there was nothing to look at or occupy his time.

Earlier in the week, a worker in one of the cell blocks shouted from a recreation yard, "Hey, Librarian. I loved those poetry books you gave me, especially the writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson." We had overheard him quoting a Carl Sandburg poem from memory to a fellow inmate. How often do you hear "City of Wide Shoulders" recited on the street or in the classroom?

Another person has written a novel and wanted grammar, punctuation and spelling books to check his work. Other GED students request books that show their desire to excel to a higher level.

As our team proceeded down the long "Get Smart" hallways of the jail, we passed one of our favorite deputies who quipped, "This is Jail, not Yale."

We're not so sure about that!

2008-11-22T16:22:00.000-08:00

Eat your heart out, Mom!

Don't gripe, Grim Reapers, but the young magician with the "dark mark" has you beat. An inmate at our city jail wanted to show us his love for Rowling's books, so he rolled up his sleeve and showed us his Harry Potter tattoo, spectacles and all! It looked like this picture:

The days of blue roses and plump red hearts may never go away, but the teenage trickster is now peeking from pecs around America. Since EVERYONE--in or out of jail--is being branded, a wider range of images will be used. Therefore, a Potter tattoo should come as no surprise. Voldemort may seem a little more in keeping with the biker crowd, but you never know. The muggle-born maven, Hermione, may soon appear in the most unusual places. Pip-pip, cheerio!!

2008-11-02T08:36:00.000-08:00

S-w-e-e-e-e-t!

The Alameda County Library fleet ...

announces the arrival of a sleek new Dodge Caravan. Rear Seats were removed to accommodate our weekly deliveries of goodies to the jail. A cage was inserted to protect the heads of the illustrious jail staff from flying bins (or from the kind of unruly passengers known to cops and soccer moms.)

The van drives like a dream, has--finally, Mira!--a built-in CD Player, and holds our aching backs snugly in place as we return home from a hard day's hauling. Only by way of contrast, did we realize how jarring it was to drive back from the jail in our old van. This one is so relaxing it puts the Jails Librarian into an alpha state. If the offgassing from the new plastic doesn't kill us, we'll be in fine shape for years to come.

The bed is a bit smaller so some of our hauls might have to be smaller. This will only affect a few runs to pick up donations and perhaps cause us to be more selective and efficient. The gas mileage is better and the van can use alternative fuel when necessary. This will save our legs a lot of wear and tear, for all you Flintstones' fans.

So all you taxpayers, thanks for the new wheels!!!!! Our bodies and minds are eternally grateful.

Dan's 2-cents: a real treat.

2008-10-25T14:07:00.000-07:00

Remembering Emma Lazarus

Uptown Klezmer's Ashnelerando is the perfect music for the election season. Ashnelerando means "double-quick" in Yiddish and Italian. It's a soundtrack for the election schtick that entertains us every four years.

It's music for the magic show that keeps us believing in our country. The magician saws democracy in two--Republican and Democrat--causing the crowd to gasp and choose sides. On November 4th, (s)he will step out from the ballot box MADE WHOLE. Everyone will congratulate the winner, a stunning Republicrat named __________. Wild applause!!!!

Why is a magic trick required to fool us? On a recent cover, Newsweek sells gullible Americans the lie that we are a nation of conservative war-mongers, so any leader must govern from center-right because only this constituency "pays the bills" and determines the winners. Happily, that means lots of security cameras, detention facilities and "faith" based fortresses at home and abroad. If Fortress America weren't so profitable they might call us what we truly are:

"huddled masses yearning to breathe free."

Emma Lazarus knew who we were: an immigrant nation who knew how it felt to be "homeless and tempest-tost." Here's where our readers incarcerated in the County Jails of this country and those who serve them come into the picture.

Like every other huddled citizen, we shout the words of Emma Lazarus. "Keep ancient lands, your STORIED POMP." We remain vulnerable and in need of real governance, not the tactic of slapping people down, favored by some in our government. Michael Ledeen, a Bush adminstration official, learned this as a student of Italian Fascism. And we listen to him, not Emma Lazarus?

What makes inmates vulnerable, you might ask? The same things that place us all at risk: an unresponsive job market with over-priced CEO's and wages few can live on; a lack of broad public work programs or a comprehensive safety-net combining public health, rehab, education and welfare; a judgmental society where religion exploits vulnerabilities instead of reaching out to humbly acknowledge our shared goals and needs.

Abram Maslow's hierarchy of needs applies all the way from the bottom where vulnerable people get stuck in their daily struggles to the top where self-made men and women preach about "success." Emma's heirs understand that people are not just huddled victims, they are huddled people with ambitions and dreams. BAIL OUT the American Dream. Fund social renewal, rather than fiscal removal.

2008-07-01T23:48:00.000-07:00

http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/0610/heart_russell.jpg

Book Cart, we love you!!!

Love is in the stars :-) This exclamation was shouted across the yard at us as we delivered books today. The inmate had just come out of a Minimum House. We hope his 320 "cellies" felt the love, too.

2008-06-10T00:25:00.000-07:00

The Brains Behind Jails Service!

Who fills all those requests, keeping her trained eye on the stacks, on the loading dock, on donations, on discards? The Brains Behind the Jails Service rarely gets to see the happy faces of those who receive items she has filled by request. Her longevity with the Jails Service attests to her own job satisfaction and an obvious desire to challenge inmates to think clearly about their futures.

Since we must constantly remind inmates that we fill only educational and books-in-series requests, we find out a lot about our readers' intellectual quests and educational levels. We convey this knowledge back to the office and discuss our readers' needs and determine what we can realistically provide!

Library colleagues and patrons might be surprised to learn how enterprising and practical inmates are. Favorite subjects are small-business start-up material, computer literacy and spelling books, current events and politics, as well as every classic fiction or social science text imaginable. We should not forget to mention the wildly popular, "How to write Love Poems and Love Letters," or Disney drawing patterns!

We transport all these to "The Brains Behind the Operation" at the office, keeping our eyes peeled all the while for material we know will fly off the bookcart into eager hands.

2008-05-11T11:19:00.000-07:00

All Points Bulletin: Missing Jails Van!

Imagine having to go on safari to find a 1995 Chevy Safari! That's just what happened at our County Repair facilities the other day. No one could find our broken-down van.

Returning from a day at the Jail, our trusty vehicle broke down on a busy section of the highway. We were instantly whisked to safety by the CHP Towing Service. Then the fun began. The County contracts out its towing service to a trustworthy company, with agents in many states. Press 6 for our county in California, Press 7 for Iowa.

In time, a truck showed up to tow the van to a County Repair shop. After the driver attached the wheels and hopped in the cab with me, we started toward the Library--where I was to be dropped off.

An incident from my father's life popped into mind. Never one to sit silent in a cab with a total stranger, I related the story. During WW2, dad was a flight instructor in the Army Air Corps. He was dispatched from Mississippi to Kentucky with a glider in tow. At some point over Kentucky the glider floated free from the plane and they arrived at the airfield without it. With a chuckle, I recounted this incident to the tow-truck driver. I was sure all his tow-ees had arrived safely at their repair stations.

Little did I know how prophetic my anecdote would be. The tow truck arrived at one of the three repair facilities at 6:00, several hours after closing. (So the driver had no place to leave the van.) Did he take it to another yard with a later quittin' time? That was a possibility. But no one knew. No one knew where the van was for days. Posses were sent out scouting neighborhoods around the yards to find a lonely Jails Van. No luck!

Two days later, the van was located. The driver had squirreled the 16-foot vehicle away at his facility, presumably where no one could SEE it. Now it's sittin' pretty on it's hydraulic lift, gettin' a new fuel pump or alternator. We HOPE!

Did I mention the County Neurosurgeon had contracted out it's future appointments for Brain Surgery? Call 1-800-where's my head!

2008-04-18T17:14:00.000-07:00

Building a Democratic Community...One Book at a Time!

Librarians in both public and academic spheres provide better service if they respect Experts and have expertise themselves. But Experts should not have the final word on which books are destined for your library shelves. End-users should be consulted all along the way. There are compelling reasons why this is so that go to the heart of democratic communities.

Why look beyond the Experts?

It is easy to understand why Experts have clout. Materials selection is a communal effort and it is difficult to get pesky, opinionated librarians to agree on quality unless some recognized authority issues a pronouncement: This is a must-buy! Reviews and ratings carry weight based on the author’s presumed authority in a subject area or within the publishing field.

Richard Rubin offers a word of caution, challenging librarians to look beyond fixed authorities in their efforts to establish balanced collections. He counsels them to promote the broadest as well as "latest" knowledge.

"We believe those sources we think are cognitive authorities—others we reject. What sources have the greatest cognitive authority for librarians? Are they those prepared by famous publishers like Harvard University Press or the New England Journal of Medicine?.... Are librarians in danger of censoring materials because they regard some authors or publishers as low in cognitive authority (although other groups may not regard them as such)? Although librarians often characterize themselves as objective information providers, their attitudes toward what constitutes knowledge have profound effect on their ability to serve the entire citizenry. (Rubin, 42-43).

Experts appeal to librarians because of the authority and power ascribed to them. Well-meaning librarians reason that end-users should welcome information because experts recommend it.

This type of librarian sets the tone for the profession. The advertisement-laden pages of Library Journal and other trade journals meet their collection needs. Professional organizations spring up to serve these property managers, as marketers and image consultants queue up to make the "library package" attractive.

Beyond "User Preferences"

Mutual respect was the foundation of the very “equal access” policies adopted by A.L.A. and promulgated to libraries around the country from whence such policies came! Experts were only one part of the equation.

The scale has been tipped. Legitimate authorities (domain experts) have been cozened and beguiled by corporate interests that only let certain information flow forth. End-users become zombie consumers or information addicts hooked into a particular subset of data that has been marketed to them ludicrously as their "User Preferences."

In this scenario, Librarians collect and disseminate the works of "Experts" merely as intellectual property managers, guiding people through complex systems where the censorship has already taken place. New strategic plans force this change upon the profession and ask for "cooperation." Or they are invited to hear guest speakers say unimaginable changes wrought by technology will sweep your jobs away. So “get over it.”(Wagner, 2007). Such speakers imply, “Do not object to the marketing model coming your way.”

Don't Rush Me!

Are these “new” librarians the free-thinkers they used to be—helping others to weigh authorities and think for themselves? If the profession is "too rushed" to stop and question or defy the accepted authorities (including management gurus,) one must ask, "Who is doing the rushing and why are they doing it?

Library staff who have been serving their particular communities assiduously for over two centuries (public collections are part of most American towns,) are told they need a face-lift. These same folks have been improving service in response to community need as communities changed, yet they are harangued by these consultants to “Get over” old ways of doing things. (Wagner, 2007). "Old models of service don't work." Libraries are warned to celebrate consumerism or fade into obscurity and disrepair. Information Consumption is in, Learning is out.

It's all about Greed. End-users are overwhelmed into accepting changes in their Public Institutions that are the creations of publicists and marketers--not public-spirited panels of the patrons, themselves. How did these people wrest the project of Public Libraries from the People they serve. Why do Management Gurus advise us to transform libraries to serve sleek "Information Seekers" with a high-tech warehouse, trimming collections according to the latest trends--diminishing democracy in the process?

Easy to Ignore

Despite their egalitarian shtick, many librarians behave as if they distrust the selection criteria or intelligence-level of the public they serve. They fear that too much “democratization” or public input will dumb down or halt the selection process. It is too much bother to create vendor agreements with small, independent presses or offer something unproven, perhaps controversial, to users. Some librarians don’t want the “wrong kind of people” to have free access or the “wrong kind of experts” to appear on their shelves.

Distrust is easy to institutionalize because end-users (and small publishers) lack authority. In an environment of distrust, customers attempt to gain power through challenges and complaints. End-users pit themselves against the Library establishment and isolation and egos grow large on both sides. "Experts" are called in to mediate the struggle. Over time, an imbalance of power between End-users and Experts causes erosion of public support and sabotage of funding proposals. The money that was always there for public libraries magically disappears.

Geez, Experts are People, too!

Are we too hard on the Experts. Aren't they people, too? Experts are People with fat paychecks, whose every word is tweaked by their Publishers. The Publishers rule out anyone or any idea that will harm their profits or divert their agenda.

As the economic divide grows between End-user and Expert, we seem to hear more and more about the personal lives of these "Experts." After we learn their tales of personal hardship, we can't help buying their books or accepting the publisher's agenda. This personalization is just a rhetorical ploy to solicit agreement from an audience. Rhetoric teaches us that each audience must trust its source, and the propaganda value of this cozy relationship between expert and publishers is all too clear.

Most Experts have access to publishers and media outlets and many librarians confuse this access with authority, itself. “If experts are cited in such and such a journal, or publish with some recognized university press, we should own them.” If writers snuggle up on Oprah's couch, there must be merit in their writing." Many selectors never look beyond the barrage of credentials; nor do they concern themselves with future trends or past concerns of the subject, itself. Their own philosophers try to stifle our questions with insulting books like Bloom's, "The Closing of the American Mind," showing how Americans were casualties of "Openness."

This is not dumbing down from the Masses but dumbing down from the Elite! This philosophy rose to keep us down, to render End-Users powerless before the Elite Masters who sense a loss of ideological control. Philosopher, Leo Strauss, is often cited as an Expert by neo-conservative writers and politicians. He favored using religion--not out of belief in its principles--but for its salutory controlling influence on a population. Give me a platonic break. Socrates didn't suck hemlock so that such prevarication should masquerade as "public-mindedness!"

Passive librarians are the perfect agents of this pseudo-intellectual Big Brother. Central ideological planning is not needed in a society whose librarians purchase only what the public is meant to hear and read. Superficial diversity—many languages, many ethnicities—can mask an underlying sameness in the point of view. There may be lip service to egalitarian values but no true democratic equality.

R-E-S-P-E-C-T!

The unresolved problem is that end-users, library patrons, were once respected by librarians as individuals on a quest to educate themselves. The atmosphere and collection of libraries fostered this respect for the "common person." Democratic decision-making weighed "authorities" and chose between them for the benefit of the end-user or citizen.

John Buschman is a strong advocate for a process that hands power and authority to the library user, because he believes libraries “embody an essential element of democracy. He sees them as

"a place where the ideal of unfettered communication and investigation exists in rudimentary form, allowing for critical and rational discussion of the issues of the day. Further, our various collections—at least in the ideal we’re assigned to ethically strive for—represent the variety of arguments over the public’s issues and democratic culture over time, implicitly refuting notions of once-and-for-all solutions. In other words, libraries embody the turbulent discourse of a democracy and its culture. (Buschman, 2005)."

The author goes on to show how library managers and public officials who “recast the purpose” of public institutions in “economic terms” have undermined the democratic functions that libraries, schools and museums once served.

"Like education, our field has been called upon to play a ‘crucial’ role in bringing the information society and the new economy about, but without the public funding support for that expanded (and essentially economic) mission….[W]e have carefully imitated the business management fashions, fads, and tactics appropriate to adapting to information capitalism. In the process, we have rhetorically transformed library users into ‘customers’ and then adopted the corollary business practices of marketing and public relations, adopted the market model of ‘competition’ with each other and our bookstore imitators….” (Buschman, 8)"

Buschman casts a critical eye on those things that have been deemed “necessary to keep libraries alive for that “diverse audience” craving the underlying sameness. He cites “(purely popular collections, coffee bars, no retrospective collections, an emphasis on the economically-useful electronic resources)….” (Buschman, 10)

The author does not single out these changes because he resents libraries that cater to public demand. He questions what forces have prompted the change. He wisely warns that such “obeisance” to a marketing philosophy cannot sustain the long-term deliberative process of self-education which creates an informed citizenry. He may have taken Rubin’s warning to heart. He laments the loss of the responsive, responsible citizen and he challenges librarians to select materials and create spaces that will bring the public spirit back to life.

Experts and authorities have always been consulted in the selection process. They will continue to be consulted as librarians shape collections and select information for end-users. But excellent service and high circulation might depend on critical thinking skills as much as on business savvy. End users have meaningful contributions to make in this process. Librarians must include their input in creative ways and strategize on their behalf.

Retrieved from Document: Who's Boss: Experts or End-users? (Academic Paper. Hess, 2007.)

2008-03-21T20:03:00.000-07:00

A Request we can't Honor

We received a letter from an inmate asking us to refrain from bringing books with sex and violence into the jail environment. His goal was less about moral reform than psychological well-being. He said that literature can damage the minds of the readers so as to cause more harm to the minds or elicit more illicit activity from those who are caught up in "The Game."

Our library service to jail does have some limitations, but it is not structured as a program for psychological self-improvement. We cannot assume that reading books with sex and violence (which often include hard-hitting lessons on the moral repercussions of one's acts,) damage readers' minds. We follow A.L.A.'s guidelines for library service to special populations and bring the full range of material available in a public library. Even if fiction has not become established as classic and morally uplifting, it deserves a chance to be read.

The real pity is that many voices are censored by simply falling through the cracks of the publishing world. Moral clarity might be hiding out there in some amazing minds, but we will never hear it. These cracks in the tolerant surface of the publishing world continue to suck down dissenting voices and alternate views.

Contrary to our best intentions, censorship does occur. The Jail Administration and some Deputies occasionally ask us to censor certain books for their perceived effect on morale or because they are being used to break rules and subvert authority. This kind of censorship is rare and, on occasion, we offer a rebuttal and give reasons why the books have been popular and pose no threat. Sometimes we lose.

Our distressed inmate concluded with a request we can honor: "Please bring books like the Dancing Wu-Li Masters." We'll do our darnedest to satisfy his book request, as it falls within our guidelines of honoring requests for educational literature. We would gladly offer him the best non-fiction self-help and philosophy our budget can buy.

2008-03-14T14:17:00.000-07:00

Labeling "The Poor"

For many years, marauding bands
came to the border of our land,
but could not pass the place called Avengel.

One day the bands broke through the wall
with spurs and whips and cursing calls
they won the day, and ended our Self-Rule.

The strong were sent to fill their jails.
The weak were poisoned at their wells.
But death was not the final scourge;

A final desecration lay in store.
Survivors were renamed, "The Poor,"
and asked to show the victors gratitude.

For this, we rose up from our cells
and towns and cities we rebelled!
To thank "The Rich" is more than we can do!

Dan's 2-Cents: Aren't we all Poor? Aren't we all inwardly the same, with threats of Outside Invasion heaped upon us to divide our strength and weaken our resolve? This poem is a call for Self-Rule. Only with the restoration of Self-Rule will we have Sufficient Funding.

2008-03-06T18:42:00.000-08:00

Detectives were hired... to determine which books have the least appeal to inmate readers. This is a difficult call, but seventies sci-fi often tops the list. It is a really hard sell.

However, our sleuths recently discovered a book cart that was completely empty except for two "Romances:" Linda Howard's White Lies and Christine Feehan's Dark Challenge. (300 men rejected these hot titles. Of course, a sneaky "podworker" could have squirreled them away for a little private reading in the "book closet.")

What are two puzzled Librarians to think? The staff cannot assume that Howard and Feehan are destined for the dust heap. NO!! Someone will treasure these tomes! Just listen to the blurbs on the back covers:

"Something is different. Even unconscious, this man is tougher, rougher than the man she remembers. He doesn't remember anything, but his effect on her is intense... sensual... uncontrollable...." White Lies

"Julian Savage was golden. Powerful. But tormented. For the brooding hunter walked alone, always alone, far from his Carpathian kind....When Julian heard Desari sing, rainbows swamped his starving senses...." Dark Challenge

Would YOU take home this purple prose? Hmm...on a lonely night, well, ...naahh. The quest for rejected books continues, so look for future installments of The Left Behind (on the Cart) Series.

2008-02-29T15:07:00.000-08:00

Jails Librarian assists with

Re-Entry EXPO

Many inmates enjoy library services behind bars but never use their local libraries once they are released from jail. In an effort to promote the relevance of public libraries, the Jails Librarian spent last Friday, 2/22/08, at the Re-Entry EXPO.

This event was hosted by Inmate Services, the educational arm of the Alameda County Sheriff's Department. The EXPO showed the power of information available to ordinary job-seekers and students. Each of the booths offered tools to help participants help themselves.

Inmates approached the Library Table, full of questions about starting small businesses, going back to school, or entering the job market. Participants benefited from our Librarian's expertise in Business Reference. Staff gathered books from the County Libraries' collections as well as best sellers from local bookstores. These books were on display for browsing, with printed handouts available for inmates to take back to their cells. In this way, the wealth of information will be passed to others who could not attend. Some of the information came from the following sources:

Small Business Administration provides a number of useful tools for Job Seekers and those who want to start their own businesses.
The Reading For Life Program at the local Library educates inmates about Life Skills, Literacy and Re-entering the Community.
Two regional Educational programs are especially popular with people leaving jail. Project Bridge helps people start back to school and brush up on basic Math and English skills. Project Rebound assists people with some Community College credits who are interested in finishing College.

All in all, the EXPO was quite a success and the Library was happy to provide practical help on the path to Re-entry.

for additional information on the Expo, follow the link to an article at the Contra Costa Times

http://www.contracostatimes.com/search/ci_8345132?IADID=Search-www.contracostatimes.com-www.contracostatimes.com&nclick_check=1

2008-02-16T14:13:00.000-08:00

Muchas Gracias, San Lorenzo!

Tucked away behind several other boxes, the jails staff discovered A WHOLE BOX of Spanish-language donations. We can shed our chagrined, apologetic faces and smile at our Spanish speakers, offering a broader range of choices than usual.

Branches may be surprised to learn that Jails needs all your adult-level Spanish-language discards in paperback format. Books that need a bit of mending are welcome.

2008-02-08T01:20:00.000-08:00

Inmate tells it like it WAS

A gentleman in his late 50's was deeply-moved by a comprehensive biography of Martin Luther King, Jr. This man had spent his formative years in the South and the book brought back his childhood and rekindled his sense of history. He cried while reading the book because the pain and the high hopes were so vivid to him. It just so happens his childhood coincided with a pivotal era in American history.

Days before the California Primary, he said this book reminded him that old values should not be tossed away as African-Americans move forward. He lamented that some of the younger inmates don't know anything about King or his message. The Librarian speaking with him said he is now the teacher. With the book in his possession, the history is HIS OWN.

2008-02-08T00:26:00.000-08:00

Too much shelf space???

Here are some photos of the Collection after the Staff goes book-buying. All the books are lined up and dotted to distinguish their genres. Yippee!

As you can see, however, several genres are so popular & pricey, surrounding shelves sit empty. Any donated Westerns, African-American and Spanish-language materials would keep the books snug and happy.

The wealth of choices we DO have is thanks to our great benefactors. Once again, muchas gracias, xie-xie, danke, thanks a ton to Half-Price Books in Fremont and the Friends of Dublin Library.

2007-12-31T21:09:00.000-08:00

Follow that Van!

As we pulled into our parking spot, a favorite deputy walked up to our "Jails Van." He had a quizzical look on his face, then broke into a smile. He had been staring at the magnetic poster on the side of our van that says, "Your Library Card-- Get It!"

This diehard deputy thought our sign said, "Your Liberal Card--Get It!" That's right, L-I-B-E-R-A-L! This made our day, being the card-carrying A.L.A. members that we are!

No bad reflection on our Conservative confreres in the Jails Library business. I'm sure they're out there...somewhere...diligently preserving the rights of the poor and oppressed. :-)

2007-12-27T10:32:00.000-08:00

Do Not Pass Go, Do Not Collect $200!

Go directly to this link:

http://blog.webjunctionworks.org/index.php/2007/12/24/weekly-tips-the-correctional-librarian-community/

Our little old blog is mentioned, but much more besides.

2007-12-21T12:05:00.000-08:00

Criminal Justice and Karma

The accused and the accusers come to court
intent upon their side, alone.
But criminal and victim form a whole.
Dante, Milton, Blake portrayed
the devil as a fallen arrow
shot from the Creator's bow.

A fallen angel is an angel still.
Karma acknowledges each deed
and sees its true reciprocal.
Love is a self-exciting dynamo, a magnetic field
generated by Earth's core. It sends out
tender cords to pull all things back to itself.

Where is the human heart that judges all,
the karmic wheel within the wheel
that turns within this blue green world?
It spins upon an axis of desire.
The one who comprehends desire
dispenses justice, a deeper thing than guilt.

--Dan Hess

Dan's 2-cents: Of course, this is why we bring them books. They are part of us, or as Tennyson once wrote: "I am a part of all that I have met...."

2007-12-12T01:55:00.000-08:00

Dublin, we love you!

The Jails' team wants to thank the Friends of the Library at Dublin for extraordinary generosity. The whole van was filled. With "hauls" like this, the program based on 75% donations can continue.

Though this Staff member looks beat, he knows that a bin in the van is worth a "book in the hand" of some happy inmate.

Keep 'em coming. Yeehah!

2007-12-03T00:40:00.000-08:00

Needle in "La-Haye" Stack

Don't get me wrong, but a Deputy reported last Thursday that he found a needle taped in a book. Whether it was the Left Behind series or not, the Needle was Left Behind by someone!

It came as a huge shock to the library staff. He said the tape was yellowing so the needle had obviously been in the book for some time.

We have no idea if it was "our" book, stamped with our county and branch. He didn't keep the book to show us, just reported it to us casually. I wish we could have seen the title and determined its origin. Strangely enough, nearly every book passes the scrutiny of one of three people on our staff during its selection and processing. Since we choose the books, we often remember where and when we got them.

So we don't know the book's origin. This is the big problem and cause to blog or scream from the rooftops. Every paperback in the jail is perceived as OURS. Though the copy may originate at an outside vendor and come in through the mail, or through the Chaplain's program with its healthy book budget, or be brought in casually by a technician or deputy--all books wind up on OUR CARTS or in bags for our removal if inmate cells are "shaken down."

Only our longevity as a book service, our yearly contract, and the trust which each librarian or library assistant creates "on the job" ensures that we are welcome. Needles in books are a serious blow to that trust. This particular deputy was very jovial and enjoys getting books into the hands of inmates. There have been many deputies who might have called our whole program into question.

Obviously, we should and do check our books and magazines. Small taped items with hardly any thickness could float around for years unnoticed. I guess it's human trickery and human error, and I should just take a deep breath. Perhaps inmates saw the needle and passed it by, preferring a dose of fiction or non-fiction to dope. Hmmmm???? Likely story!

2007-11-25T22:44:00.000-08:00

Behold the Pale Librarian

I have scored a copy of Behold the Pale Horse by William Cooper for some lucky inmate. We routinely tell inmates the book is not available, due to its cost--not to its content. It is perhaps the most requested "undeliverable" book in our program. What a windfall to have a copy fall into our hands.

Cooper tells the kind of story many inmates--especially those remotely connected to illegal drug traffic--want to read. Cooper alleges covert government involvement in drug deals, citing secret operations that occasionally blow up in the perpetrators faces (like the Iran-Contra scandal.) As an added titillation, UFO hoaxes are discussed. Cooper sees them as a way to throw the public into a state of panic in which citizens give up their constitutional rights. The book points out how larger powers of search and seizure are granted to police and federal agents, which is a story of great interest to people in jail. (Photocopies of top secret documents pertaining to Assassinations and Military Rule are scattered throughout the book.) Things and people discussed in the book have gained even more power since the book was published in 1990. Some have danced away from any public scrutiny of their conflicts of interest. Your run-of-the-mill conspiracy theory book is usually less prescient than this tome.

As librarians who rely on donations of social science and history that often give glowing accounts of "The Greatest Generation," this book offers a glimpse at the dark side of that patriotic furor. Criminality from the top down! Cooper's villains certainly glow, but with a more radioactive hue. There is really no way to rule it out based on blatant falsehoods or racist innuendo. It doesn't surrender to these "lowest common denominators" to attract its audience.

The worlds of Public Library and Jails Library do not always mesh. This blog cites many examples of censorship by the Sheriff's Department. I hope this book does not meet that fate, because it would certainly be nixed only on the basis of its political content--however "planted" or "fake" that content might be. Whatever happens, it still costs a bundle and we aren't going to run out and buy it. But it should keep one lucky inmate reading through the night.

2007-08-14T22:50:00.000-07:00

Comic Relief!

I, John Doe, number 555. By all means would like [to] get a ragged old dictionary that [is] lying around some place, please.

From ragged old to spanking new, we can never score enough college-level dictionaries for our inmates. But this guy knows how to pull our heart --or puppet -- strings!

2007-07-28T22:38:00.000-07:00

Make an Inmate's Life take on a new trajectory, Donate a GED Prep book today!

Special Request: Our jails library service has been asked by our Wildly Successful GED Instructors to solicit GED prep books from donors. Email the address below if you are interested in directly donating these materials. Contact me at dhess@aclibrary.org

Please use Donations in SUBJECT LINE.

_______________________________________________

Incarceration Nation: The Rise of a Prison-Industrial Complex

http://www.populistamerica.com/
incarceration_nation_the_rise_of_a_prison_industrial_complex

July
27, 2007 by Andrew Bosworth

Consider this disturbing fact: the United States now has the world's highest incarceration rate outside of North Korea. Out of 1,000 people, more Americans are behind bars than anywhere in the world except in Kim Jong-Il's Neo-Stalinist state. The US has a higher incarceration rate than China , Russia, Iran, Zimbabwe and Burma - countries American politicians often berate for their human rights violations.

Well over two million Americans are behind bars. Let us agree that violent criminals and sex offenders should be in jail, but most Americans are not aware that over one million people spend year after year in prison for non-violent and petty offenses: small-time drug dealing, street hustling, prostitution, bouncing checks and even writing graffiti.

....The Founding Fathers would be rolling in their graves even faster than they already are if they knew that prisons are now lucrative corporations. These "McJails" receive money from government on a per-prisoner, per-day basis. No doubt, had the framers of the Constitution imagined that future Americans could descend to such depths they would have banned the commercialization of prisons outright.

Not surprisingly, the executives of these for-profit prisons sponsor "tough-on-crime" legislation and even line the pockets of politicians who back "mandatory sentencing" laws. For-profit prisons even get to write new mandatory sentencing laws to guarantee the raw material (the rabble of society) for an emerging prison-industrial complex.

In a Great Leap Backward, American politicians have also repealed two federal laws (the Hawes Cooper Act and the Ashurst-Sumner Act) that virtually outlawed prison labor, making it a felony to move prison-made goods across state boundaries. Stamping state license plates for cars was generally acceptable, but these Acts tried to end the leasing out of prisoners to private companies - they tried to eliminate prison-plantations and "factories with fences."

In the 1970s, a Supreme Court Justice, Warren Burger, proselytized for more leeway as to what kinds of "projects" prisoners could work on. Before too long, Congress amended the laws, and by 1990 it was permissible for prisoners to produce products entering the stream of interstate commerce. Many of the largest corporations in America have taken advantage of prison labor in what might be called "Operation Sweatshop."

Amazingly, on http://www.correctionscorp.com/ there is a separate section for "investors." "Corrections Corporation of America is the nation's largest owner and operator of privatized correctional and detention facilities and one of the largest prison operators in the United States behind only the federal government and three states" (Corrections Corporation of America).

Thus, the "tough on crime" propaganda masks a profit motive. Naturally, no politician can say that "my campaign was paid for by corporate lock-downs" or "I help run prison sweatshops." [Though Tom Delay would not be above such a boast, having applauded the practice of government-santioned sweat shops and prostitution on the Marianas Islands!] Representatives in Congress - mostly the "Big Government" Republicans but also many "Nanny-State" Democrats - are becoming the new goons in an emerging for-profit police state.

Call your broker.

Dan's 2-cents: The statistics are staggering, when one considers how far the percentage of incarcerated people vs. general population has risen since the rowdy early days of this Republic. It seems that the forces of Punishment and Greed are always beating back the forces of Equality and putting them in stocks (and bonds!)

Equality is part of the democratic bargain and it can't be traded away on Wall Street.

On a lighter note: On my salary, I think I'll refrain from investing in prison-based STOCKS! We trade in books, exclusively! I'm happy to fork over funds for the purchase of books for inmates. Feel free to join the process.

2007-07-20T00:09:00.000-07:00

Through a Hole in the Door:

Encouraging words came our way today from a young man in the Maxest of the Maximum Security Cells. He has done time in a number of prisons and jails and told us that our library carts are...drum roll, please...the BEST! Though this compliment may have had ulterior motives (ie, procuring some more James Patterson books for his book cart,) the guy was straight with his praise for our service. He said that most facilities just didn't bother with books or only brought the oldest stuff.

We feel bad because our books aren't in mint condition, but this inmate can overlook Anne Rice books mummified in tape or Sidney Sheldon's Nothing Lasts Forever scrawled in marker on the spine. He's thankful for the real thing, and we are, too.

2007-07-01T12:56:00.000-07:00

A very good day:

On June 28, 2007, the team had one of its best services ever. This occured in a Maximum Security house, where one deputy delayed his routine afternoon chores to stand guard over the service. He did not have to miss his lunch break, as some deputies have to do in order to accommodate the librarians. Central Operations commanders made book service possible by not scheduling too many conflicting duties for this deputy. He was free to help the team and this sense of accommodation created a cooperative mood among the inmates. On one occasion, he was forced to assert his authority and reprimand folks crowded at a doorway, but the reprimand established order and the "crowd" reformed itself into a line of individuals interested in books.

By the way, this deputy had no back-up on the floor. The library team is often denied access to inmates for this reason, alone -- especially in max houses where arguments can escalate very quickly into hostility and more coverage may be helpful. Even with this added risk, the deputy's authority was adequate to the task. The security priority was moderated by his recognition that the inmates need the mental stimulation of reading.

Many skeptics say that inmates abuse the books and game the system simply to get free stuff. First of all, who wouldn't avail themselves of the pleasure of reading--especially when bare walls are the alternative?? Yes, some books go down the toilet to cause headaches for the maintenance crew. Some books make the stiff beds more comfortable. Some magazines are stripped of their beautiful models, or even liquidated to provide ink for tatoos. But inmates primarily pour over the words these books contain. Their minds are broadened, according to their curiosity. A culture that kills curiosity is a dead culture and the life-enhancing value of lit really stands out in jail.

Any Grinches in our midst should be reminded of the fact that inmates pay for the lion's share of the book service through surcharges on commissary purchases. (This surcharge snags 50-cents per inmate per month for reading materials for a population of 4000 inmates.)

On June 28th, everyone USED us and we loved it! The entire population of the house (190 men) received access to the book cart and magazines.

What is a bad day?

The worst scenario for inmates and for the library team is 24-hour lockdown with no access to programs or benefits like reading materials. The County Library has a contractual duty to rotate materials for each house every 4 weeks, whether inmates receive them or not. Inmates have a highly-developed sense of fairness and a keen sense of justice; therefore they demand access to the materials we bring. They know carts are locked in the closet, waiting.

Many deputies allow interested individuals access to the book carts and magazines, though they refuse contact between inmates and the library team. There have been several occasions, however, when the security or lock-down model has been enforced so strictly that the materials delivered are not touched for more than one or even two months. An undisturbed book cart and neat magazine boxes are the worst case scenario.

There you have it: the good with the bad.

2007-05-25T12:43:00.000-07:00

Raided Rooms

Soldiers in the doorway
with orders to search,
a father goes hoarse,
asking, "What do you want?"

This face or that? Each wonders who
will be the target of this raid,
"What did we do?" You!
And You! And You! Move!

The young, wide-open eyes
see their elders disappear
down stairs and hallways,
gone for "Processing."

The neighbors' windows flicker
blue from the TV.
No one watches the street,
no one wants to feel the heat

approaching block by block,
the creeping onslaught of apocalypse.
Some people sleep while others are removed.
"Just pray it isn't" you or you or you.

The TV talks of Progress in the War;
the faceless face of some elected fool
assures the viewers, "You are on God's side."
The ones who were not taken turn away.

Take me, Take Me to meet
the soldiers who don't blink black tears
as they take hooded prisoners
down rubble-littered streets.

Dan's 2-cent's worth: What America does abroad, it does and will do more of at Home. Arrests may take place 7000 miles away today and next door tomorrow.

2007-05-17T23:21:00.000-07:00

"Don't do the Crime if you can't do the Time!"

That's easy for Baretta to say, but those without a TV series may see things differently. Take A.C., for example:

"Please send me a book on astro-projection. If I could make contact with this other person I might be able to stop her from ruining my life. Please hurry, send the book."
Perhaps we should send Please Understand Me, or scare up a copy of I'm Okay, You're Okay, but we don't want to disappoint. Astral Projection may very well get the message across, though the real Ms. X might give his astral body a welcome he didn't have in mind. You know what they say about dropping in, unannounced.

2007-05-07T13:01:00.000-07:00

Don't tell them about the...D.O.G.S!!!!!!

Check your freedoms at the door, folks, it's...Jail Time!

Shirley Glennor wrote a piece on prison censorship back in Feb 2007. It touched on things we are seeing in our own program and even gets to our own "desire to please" by selecting material that won't offend the correction's staff:

Censorship in prison libraries is on the rise, the extent varying from state to state and among individual institutions within the same state....Below are some of the kinds of challenges that the librarians reported:

No graphic novels because some show skimpily dressed women and it may affect sex treatment programs.
No hardback books, because it is easy to hide contraband in spine of these books
No ethnic materials or programs because it means they would have to provide for every ethnic group that demands materials.
Mail room has a 20 page list of materials that are not allowed.
No homegrown newspapers because it reports the crimes in the neighborhood from which the inmates come and they are afraid of gang retaliation.
They have faith-based programs and want materials that support those programs.
They tear out sections of magazines that have what they consider inappropriate before sending them to the library or to the inmates who have subscriptions.
[Our jails program has a hard time obtaining Spanish-language fotonovellas with racy covers, peppy crime plots and steamy sex scenes. This did not use to be a problem, but certain vendors are reluctant to carry them.]

Many of the censorship challenges are arbitrary, based on the bias or punitive attitude of individual security officers or other personnel within the institution. Some examples of these are:

A prison psychologist advocated removal of books on crime because she felt books on true crime impeded her attempts to treat offenders.
A corrections officer wanted books about dogs removed because the institution had a canine unit and he feels it is not good for the inmates to know anything about dogs.
The administration in one institution did not want a National Geographic video about Nelson Mandela to be shown because it had a shot of an African child without clothes.
Some officers argued about having books on how to start businesses because they feel it is a teaching tool for inmates' scams.

Librarians cope with these challenges in a variety of ways. Some form selection committees comprising education, and security staff, and this helps to reduce the number of challenges. (The cynical part of me says at least it gets some of the security staff to read some literature). Others have used the Library Bill of Rights, pointing out that the materials in question in no way compromise security....

Dan's 2-cents: Erasing Privacy from the Books!

One is always tempted to react to the ignorance or stubbornness of people who censor library materials. It is true that the dumbing down and toughening up of our society allows the least enlightened to set the tone and make the rules.

However, any discussion of censorship in jails and prisons must take into account the Authorities far more powerful than corrections staff. These well-funded, highly-educated figures are playing fast and loose with our freedoms. Some of them are sitting on the Supreme Court, but more on that later.

Just as a private organization like the Boy Scouts can discriminate against gay young people in its selection policy, privatized jails and prisons can discriminate in their book selection policies or spend their "faith-based funds" without the guidelines of an equal access policy essential to public librarianship.

There have been court cases initiated by inmates who complained their religions were not being served. This type of discrimination has not been permitted by courts. However, the notion of uncensored, equal-access book selection seems to be under "Court" Radar.

Censorship may be part of a larger attack on an individual's right to privacy.

Several Supreme Court Justices have asserted that the U.S. Constitution guarantees "No Right to Privacy" for individual citizens. While these justices deride a concept American Citizens hold dear, they gleefully uphold the private affliliations of "corporations" or "institutions" and heap privileges upon them. Conveniently for them, public and private interests and rights are becoming indistinguishable under the guise of "privatization." In the privatized sphere, individuals seem to be losing rights while the merged interests of corporations--with the legal status individuals once enjoyed--receive greater rights to discriminate and withhold funding.

Ordinary people can point out this travesty of justice until they are blue in the face, but no one listens. Okay, who else has noticed? Why does Sandra Day O'Connor, retired from the court, now warn us that our state is adopting fascism? Is it from INSIDE KNOWLEDGE?

Individuals such as Thomas Jefferson knew what individual rights to privacy were. Jefferson championed these rights in the Bill of Rights that guaranteed freedom of speech and security in one's papers. The framers considered their solitary, private selves as models for the ordinary citizen. The Enlightenment to which Jefferson subscribed championed a free mind engaged in free inquiry, regardless of one's station.

We are the same old individuals we always were and deserve the same rights. Regardless of one's criminal status, the reading and writing of inmates does not jeopardize security. The "mind" is a barrier that can never be breached, so why does the government think it controls the Minds of Inmates and what does it gain from the pretense?

If our private papers happen to be published materials--the books we CHOOSE TO READ in the pursuit of "life, liberty and happiness--how can it be legal for those materials to be confiscated and removed? We can laugh at the guy who's scared of showing dogs or the human body to inmates, but we cannot laugh at the Supreme Court and Executive Branch so interested in erasing privacy from the books.

Reference: Glennor, S. (2007) retrieved on May 7, 2007 from http://www.ala.org/ala/olos/outreachresource/btw0207.htm

2007-04-16T23:42:00.000-07:00

More than a Prisoner....

60 MINUTES: 4/15/07 -- MAXIMUM SECURITY EDUCATION -- Bob Simon visits a prison where inmates serving long sentences have found a way to free their minds through college education provided by elite Bard College. Catherine Olian is the producer.

I watched this program on a hospital TV while visiting a friend. It was a reminder that we all share institutional experiences throughout our lives, but no person can be reduced to his or her institutional ties. The woman in bed with heart problems was a patient--but only for the time being.

One very astute and determined student among the inmates said he had a daughter who had just been accepted into college. He had broken through the inertia and confusing feelings that come from being in prison and maintained a relationship with his daughter. He cared about her success. This would be an admirable step in itself, but he had gone even further to say to his daughter--as he said to the camera--that he was "more than a prisoner." He had completed the requirements for his Bard College degree and was going through graduation at the prison.

Correctional Facilities are designed for a transforming process like higher education. According to one local politician, prison "should change people." This is a truism because everyone knows prison DOES change people, it is just the staff's opportunity to help make SOME CHANGES for the better! I have watched highly-sociable people with great conversational skills and a sense of curiosity crash and burn as their trial unfolds and incarceration works its "magic" on their souls. Focused education with a curriculum pointed at the outside world helps inmates confront and question the negative transformations that occur in prison.

Our own library service resembles the Bard College program on some fronts, especially the Reading For Life Classes that are a part of Jails Literacy. Even sustained reading with a wide selection of books helps inmates face depression and boredom. Perhaps, a few minds are transformed. We have certainly heard our readers speak of being moved or changed or challenged. It is no shallow statement to hear them say--like the man on 60 Minutes--they are more than Prisoners.

2007-03-23T13:08:00.000-07:00

Are you down with THAT?!

Tressa of Birmingham Public Library wrote:
Urban fiction. Hip hop fiction. Gangsta literature. Ghetto lit. Street lit. What once had no formal definition now has many names. Urban fiction is defined by its location of the urban environment and its subject matter of poverty, racism, gangs, drugs and prostitution. The characters are African American or sometimes Latino who speak in the tough vernacular of street speak. Thus Mary Monroe and Terry McMillan do not write urban fiction; Terri Woods and Iceberg Slim do write urban fiction.
Urban fiction was never really considered legitimate literature and was not taken seriously by publishers. This changed when Terri Woods began selling copies of her book True to the Game (1994) out of the trunk of her car, and word of mouth helped the book sell more than 200,000 copies.
Since then urban fiction has been flying off the shelves. Provocative covers and exciting plot lines attract scores of readers. I've worked in the Fiction Department for eight years and have seen its popularity steadily increase. It doesn’t look like it's slowing down any time soon.
Urban fiction started with Iceberg Slim and Donald Goines in the 70's, followed by Sister Souljah in the 80's with The Coldest Winter Ever, and now these writers who are carrying on the tradition:

T. N. Baker * Chunichi * Wahida Clark * Keisha Ervin * K'wan Foye Michael Gainer * Erik S. Gray * James Earl Hardy * Shannon Holmes * LaJill Hunt * Angel M. Hunter * Jihad * Solomon Jones Thomas Long * Joseph Nazel * Noire * Michael Presley * A. J. Rivers * Vickie M. Stringer * Nikki Turner * Omar Tyree * Carl Webber * Tu Shonda L. Whitaker"
Retrieved from http://bplolinenews.blogspot.com/2007/03/ & urban-fictionso-thats-what-its-called.html (Copy to notepad and delete &, then paste into browser to access original web page.)
Dan's 2-Cents: Thanks to Susan, our Web Librarian, for the link. If we bought books exclusively from this list of authors, we'd send 75% of our readers through the jail roof. The Correction's Staff may not like that since they prefer that inmates keep their feet on the ground! Each time an Urban Book is included in our bin of carefully-packed materials, we must decide which cell-block will be the lucky winner.
Non-conformity in language is part of Urban Fiction's appeal to outsiders and runs parallel to the socially-disapproved or criminal "Action" of the stories. But what about the insiders? For readers who grew up on the streets, the familiarity of the dialect and action is a prime source of attraction.
I was surprised to see Coldest Winter Ever on the list. It is a tale of "The Life," but sets the bar higher for all the authors listed, based on its emotional integrity. The pain behind the writer's words is felt, is real and conveyed without the comic book aura employed by a few of the other authors named above. Our readers can sure distinguish the best from the mediocre and they love Sister Souljah.
However. any of these books are great if you want a quick fix to pass the time between TV and bed!

2007-03-04T22:43:00.000-08:00

Our Books, our Selves

What is the fate of discards, especially from the Poetry Shelves? Poets live with the nagging knowledge that their words will disappear. Writers from other disciplines are often too self-flattering to envision a librarian weeding her shelves or the cataloger hitting his delete button. But discard they do!

Enter the informed reader, desperate for a good book--circulation stats be damned! Here's a stanza rescued from the dumpster of oblivion:

from Song of Farewell....

Was mir geliehen wurde
wechselndes Licht an den Wänden,
Verständnis für manche Vergeblichkeit,
ein tifer gespürter Schimmer des Laubes--
dem Unerfahrbaren geb ichs zurück.

What was loaned to me:
changing light on walls,
understanding of many a futility,
a deeper-felt glimmer of leaves--
I give them back to the never-to-be-known.

(Original German text by Heinz Piontek, English translation by Gertrude Schwebell.)

dan's 2-cents: The data patrol made up of well-trained information specialists may not know the value of these words, but I do.

2007-01-31T15:48:00.000-08:00

No Fear....

Imagine all the jail cells in the world and the non-human inmates who reside there. Spiders—for instance—are tough cellies to reckon with. Some inmates, however, find these predatory invertebrates fascinating. Here’s Christopher on the topic of a recent spider bite:

"I'm looking for any kind of books on spiders or spider bites. I believe I was bitten on my face by a spider just the other day. I even found a spider in my cell that might have bitten me. The odd thing about it is that I think it's the same spot where I have been bitten before. If you could help me with any reading material on spiders or bites, I would really appreciate it. Thank you, and have a nice day." These are not the words of an arachnophobe!

In the United States, only the bites of the brown recluse and the black widow are poisonous. Allergic reactions to other types can also pose a threat. But for a great many people, the FEAR of those eight scurrying legs freezes them in their tracks.

Insect-Inspecta offers these insights on the “COPING STYLES OF ARACHNOPHOBICS.”

http://www.insecta-inspecta.com/culent/arach/

"A psychiatry professor from Canada classifies arachnophobics in two categories: monitors and blunters. When a "monitor" enters a room, he searches the entire room for a spider. When he finds one, he not only makes sure he knows where it is but he continues to follow or monitor it. A "blunter" does the exact opposite: he does everything in his power to keep from seeing a spider in a room. He will distract himself, even talking to himself to avoid seeing the spider." [One category was excluded. Marta, my coworker, says she is a killer.]

For me, the early memory of a huge black spider crawling up the tap and falling into the bathtub (with me!) induced a lifetime of jitters.

2007-01-22T09:33:00.000-08:00

You think YOUR mail gets lost? Inmate Steve sends an Aztec Warrior to sort things out!

Librarian: Could you see to it that STEVE MARTINI receives this [drawing and letter?] I do write to authors but I'm afraid mail gets lost or never delivered so I can't be sure. Besides you'd know where to sent it, wouldn't you? Thanks 4 your help. -- Steve B.

Dan's 2-cents: Yes, there appears to be a force field that "disappears" books and letters coming in and out of the jail. Many of the disappeared items go missing during Shakedowns and reappear in huge plastic bags stuffed with library books, personal items, sock balls and plastic sandals!

I can't say where the letters go. But as the trusty bookcart man, I'm happy to send them on their way. We have received letters to Iyanla Vanzant, as well.

2006-12-17T22:46:00.000-08:00

All that passes from the state of heaviness to the state of subtletly passes through the moment of fire and light.

--Paul Valery, French Poet

dan's 2cents: A student I tutored long ago was released from prison into a program house. It is run by a very capable and caring team who know incarceration inside out. The student is very bright and we both agree that a program called Project Rebound is an excellent place to let his light shine.

He has started and stopped the application process many times, usually because he's back in jail. I am involved in the current sign-up process. I don't know if it will happen this time, though he seems more determined (Third time's a charm, he says.)

How does a person leave the state of heaviness--the American Penal System, addiction, or other problems of which I'm not aware? How does a person reach the state of subtlety which Higher Education, Recovery programs and Mental Health treatment seem to promise?

The French Poet says it is necessary to be transformed, consumed by "the moment of fire and light." How does that passion translate into human terms? I don't think "self-improvement" is enough. The deepest emotional centers of the brain must be engaged in this transformation--something a consumer culture cannot inspire.

What can inspire change? Religion...if it venerates all things. Therapy...if it generates awareness. Poetry...the best of religion and therapy, the Imagination.

2006-11-14T00:45:00.000-08:00

California Library Association's 2006 Fall Report:

Prison Librarianship 101 was the hit of the party! Well, maybe not. But a full room showed up to listen to the panel of speakers and participate in the discussion. I sensed a hundred unasked and unanswered questions and comments, since so much collective "Jails Library" experience was in that room. We needed more time for audience participation.

It was informative to combine Prison libraries, County Library Services to Jails (our type,) and Literacy Programs. It increased our sense of shared purpose, even though we serve in a wide variety of correctional settings. Programs, ages and correctional environments vary, but the NEEDS are much the same.

2006-11-08T11:38:00.000-08:00

A Jails Librarian’s job satisfaction is very high. The sheer enthusiasm of Inmate Readers is the reason that Prison Librarians remain jazzed about the job, even as the funding fluctuates. A prominent Prison Librarian, Vibeke Lehmann, writes, “One can safely say that incarcerated

persons have a large number of unmet needs, which translate into a high demand for information, learning materials, and self-improvement resources; the library, in cooperation with other prison programmes, can play a vital role in meeting these needs. An inmate who wants to use his time constructively is likely to become an avid library user…. (Lehmann, p 28)

Our own experience with inmates in the County Jail affirms Dr. Lehmann’s statistic that Inmates use libraries very heavily—up to 10 times as much as people on the outside. Much of the job satisfaction and measurement of success is based on oral accounts that back up this statistic. Many inmates in our own County Jail from age 18 to 65 say they do not read “on the streets,” or “never enter a bookstore or library.” Yet in the absence of interpersonal distractions, or perhaps to avoid interpersonal interactions in the jail, nearly everyone reads! What more could a librarian desire?

Another measure of job satisfaction and success comes from the Prison or Jails Staff. Our Jails Librarian is frequently told that Inmate Behavior and Morale improves when Reading Material is regularly available. Conversely, the keenest disappointment for Library staff and the greatest provocation of inmate complaints are the two words: “Denied Access.” When over-stretched Deputies or misbehaving inmates cause the library service to be cancelled, everyone’s mood is affected and the complaint slips start to stack up. If we are repeatedly denied access, the Librarian’s primary duty is to advocate for the Inmates’ right to read by contacting Inmate Services. Deputies of higher rank than house deputies either force the lower ranking officers to monitor our visit or arrange for assistance in the performance of our task.

As one might expect, the dance with competing authority figures takes a toll at times, exhausting even the most resilient librarian. Though Dr. Lehmann asserts that Prisons are more focused on restorative justice, entailing higher standards for rehabilitation, she is well aware of the sound of metal sliders slamming closed:

The library programme does not function independently but operates within the larger prison environment, whose mission and security policies often conflict with the library profession's code of ethics and its belief in free access to information…. The work requires flexibility, patience, emotional stability, a high tolerance for stress, and a sense of humor.… Not losing one's cool is essential, since it may appear as a weakness that can be exploited. Stressful situations abound, since inmates are very needy, demanding and impatient….Support from the administration may not always be forthcoming, and the prison bureaucracy may seem formidable. Some administrative decisions may appear arbitrary. A sense of humor is essential; it relieves stress and defuses tense situations. Humor also improves relationships with inmates and co-workers and can reduce the inevitable barrier between security and programme staff. It helps a person see problems in perspective and avoid "burnout", an occupational hazard generally defined as a state of indifference or cynicism resulting from frustration and a feeling of helplessness. Being mentally able to leave work behind at the end of the day helps one stay sane. (Lehmann, 29-30).

This adverse environment, however, draws certain strong-willed and committed souls into its confines. The Whole Library Handbook mentions guidelines for behavioral performance that apply doubly to Jails Librarians. Due to the mental health and entertainment needs of incarcerated persons, nothing could be a more relevant repertoire of behaviors than the following: “approachability, interest, listening and inquiring, searching and follow-up.” (Eberhart, pps. 329-331.)

So jump into the Jails, fellow Librarians, your readers are waiting.

Lehmann, V. (2000) Prison Librarians Needed, IFLA Journal 2, pp. 123-128. Retrieved from http://www.ifla.org/V/iflaj/jour2602.pdf on October 30, 2006.

2006-10-08T07:17:00.000-07:00

http://www.insidecircle.org/cgi-bin/news.pl

Questions and Answers--15/4/2006

How can I write about beauty
when I'm surrounded by misery?

How can I write
about the morning rain
when my window lacks a view…

So why?
I keep drifting away, to wonder
when hopelessness is so thick in the air,
why do I keep searching,
when all the doors around me are closed.
Why do I look toward to a future,
when I lack a present?

How can I escape the grip of my demons
when they dwell within me?
How do I thrive to revive my inner child
when I am the cause of his death?

Why is my search so complicated
when I am living my destiny...
Why then,
If I have all the answers
do I keep searching for truths…

G. Alvarado 06’

dan's 2 cents: This site has one stunning poem after another, most relating to the experience of prison men's groups. The groups are called "INSIDE circles." Finding the site was one of those serendipitous things that now happens online, just like it used to "in the stacks."

Mr. Alvarado's words conveyed the truth of incarceration in sobering terms. A very clear question rung out in every stanza, reminding me of Paul Tillich's, The Courage to Be.

This quest is deeply personal, yet, in the larger sense, this shining wave of questions breaks across the entire range of minds locked up inside our jails. Why anticipate a future "when I lack a present?" "How can I escape the grip of my demons? How can I thrive to revive...?" "Why is my search so complicated?" This phrase, in particular, rattles every cage of every cell, demanding knowledge. Men trained to look tough and expected to have all the answers--men who've learned the penalties and rewards for every action the hard way--still search for truth.

Our humble book service brings just a portion of this knowledge, spurring inmates' to ask deeper questions. For this reason, our books must be relevant, sparking the pleasure centers of the brain so that feeling for life and the search for meaning can continue. We might keep Mr. Alvarado's quest in our heart as we face those whose mission is merely human warehousing. Every committee meeting, training session, budget initiative, book buying trip and quiet conversation advocating books is worth HIS while and ultimately worth OUR while.

2006-09-18T17:03:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, we had a surprise request. The last man in line at our bookcart chose his two books and magazine and headed through the cell-block door. He looked over his shoulder and said in the most cheerful voice, "Thanks for the books! Pray for me, my name is ----- -----, EFG629!"

The Deputy and my Coworker laughed as I shouted back, "We'll pray for you but God doesn't need your PFN (Prisoner File Number!)"

Here in the middle of a county jail with the TV blaring it seemed there might just be some "Higher Power" who had us all tagged and classified according to our deeds and misdeeds. Maybe this man was on to something. It shows there will always be work for Librarians--even after death. Who is going to organize and sort out all those serial numbers? God must surely need help!

Well, I've already forgotten the guy's name so I'll just have to pray for everybody.

2006-09-01T18:16:00.000-07:00

Imagine Librarians sitting silent at their desks with an FBI letter in front of them. The spurious provisions of the Patriot Act would force them to remain silent, gagged and bound to the stake of "public safety." The real threat to public safety comes not from our patrons and their research, but from the democratically-challenged Bush administration.

The end of democratic libraries is only a few gavel taps away. Only the courts and a wavering tradition of free speech protect us. When will we be taking books to Jailed Librarians???

ACLU challenges warrantless ISP and library searches

by Andrew Noyes, National Journal's Technology Daily
Aug. 8, 2006

Civil-liberties defenders will renew their court challenge to a special subpoena power built into anti-terrorism law that permits the FBI to scour library and Internet service provider files without search warrants.

The practice is allowed under "national security letters," a power recently reauthorized in the 2001 law known as the USA PATRIOT Act. The law bars recipients of the letters from disclosing the requests to anyone.

The American Civil Liberties Union and its New York chapter filed a new federal complaint last month, the groups said Monday. The legal papers originally were under seal because of the gag provision, but redacted versions were released with court approval.

The ACLU launched the case in April 2004 on behalf of an unnamed Internet service provider that received a subpoena. Several months later, a U.S. district court in New York ruled the power unconstitutional. The judge in the case, Victor Marrero, held that indefinite gag orders violate First Amendment free-speech rights, the ACLU said.

The government appealed the decision to the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, but before the court could rule, Congress amended the language on national security letters, the ACLU said. In May, the appeals court asked the district court to examine the amended language.

In its latest complaint, the ALCU argues that the gag provision gives the FBI authority to suppress speech without prior judicial review. The group also contends that the subpoena power is unconstitutional because while it permits courts to review the letters after they are issued, judges must defer to the FBI.

Jameel Jaffer, the ACLU's lead counsel in the case, called secretive government use of the letters "excessive and dangerous." According to news reports, investigators issue about 30,000 annually.

The letter in the pending case had a substantial effect on the plaintiff, who is still gagged and identified as "John Doe" in court paperwork, the ACLU said. Despite firsthand knowledge of the authority, the ISP could not participate in the heated PATRIOT Act debate that ensued nationwide in late 2005 and early 2006, the filing said.

In a similar case, the ACLU represented four Connecticut librarians who were part of a consortium that received a national security letter. The group challenged the FBI, and the government eventually withdrew its information demand and abandoned the gag order. The Supreme Court last week ordered that sealed court documents be made public.

George Christian, executive director of the Library Connection, hopes the ACLU's renewed fight results in a "definitive ruling" on "the limits of the extent to which [the letters] can be used to secure information from organizations that have collections of information.

"Emily Sheketoff of the American Library Association said the ISP case "will add to the growing judicial agreement" that the "sweeping and perpetual gag order accompanying [such letters] is unconstitutional."

http://www.govexec.com/dailyfed/0806/080806tdpm1.htm

Fight back. Support the ACLU (Americans Confronting Lawless Usurpation) :-)

2006-08-01T20:45:00.000-07:00

The University of Wisconsin Library School ROCKS! It was such a treat to see this clear, simple presentation of what makes a Jails Library program tick.

http://slisweb.lis.wisc.edu/~jail/donate/wanted.html

Here's our Version:

Most wanted items
Dictionaries, Almanacs, Atlases, Thesauri
New fiction, magazines, and Non-fiction in Spanish

Most wanted authors
Sidney Sheldon, Stuart Woods, Dean Koontz, Donald Goines, Stephen King, John Grisham, James Patterson, Louis L'Amour, Anne Rice (remember, someone blew me a KISS for finding Taltos!), John Saul, Janet Evanovich, Iris Johansen, Michael Connelly, Stephen Hunter, Clive Cussler, Wilbur Smith, Robert Ludlum.

Most wanted subjects
Poetry, especially love poems!!!!
Religion, especially Islam
Physical and mental health
Psychology and self-help
Job manuals and career advice
Hobbies and games: chess, card games, Scrabble, drawing
True Crime, [Ann Rule] and Crime: gangs and prison life
AODA and recovery materials

African-American nonfiction topics:
Black history, slavery, Black nationalism

African-American fiction: Terry McMillan, E. Lynn Harris, Mary B. Morrison, Eric Jerome Dickey + any URBAN STREET FICTION

Westerns: Louis L'Amour, Larry McMurtry, William Johnstone, Jake Logan, Gunsmith, Spur and Longarm!!

Romance: Jackie Collins, Judith Krantz, Sandra Brown, Nora Roberts

Science fiction/fantasy: Star Wars, Terry Brooks, David Eddings, Tolkien, J.K. Rowling, Salvatore, Jordan, Modesitt, Weis & Hickman

2006-07-31T03:05:00.000-07:00

Marta is one of the excellent team who supports our Jails Program. One of her roles is filling requests. The meticulous matching of request slip to material has paid off!

We received an enthusiastic "thank you" for materials supplied to an inmate on the Max Side who is teaching social studies to a small class of inmates in his cell-block. "This hidden university...appreciates your concern of us not wasting quality time. That is essential in enlightenment of the mind. 'The mind is a terrible thing to waste' was the most powerful commercial ever made...." The Russian novelist, Dostoevsky, expressed the same thing after seeing all the vitality and intellectual capacity of the men incarcerated around him going to waste.

This guy likes to instruct the young about political issues. He doesn't shy away from controversy or complexity. Some months ago, he was exercising in the outer yard--each inmate gets some solo "solar" recharging--and I offered him a book about the "Authoritarian Personality."

I hope he continues to discover and share mental freedom with his "cellies." It is imperative in a jail--which teaches adaptation to order and routine--to knock the authoritarian monkey off our backs! Our aim should be to return citizens who understand self-control onto our streets, not automatons who merely follow orders. And thanks to great library service, we will.

2006-07-18T15:02:00.000-07:00

From Great Falls Tribune, a profile of the inmates and volunteer librarians who serve them at Cascade County Regional Jail. Fiction, fantasy and Western novels are particularly popular, but the population is hard on the books, sometimes even ripping out a page in the middle or the last page of a book (this happened to Harry Potter). One of the inmates repairs the thousands of books in the jail's library and fills the carts each week with special requests from other inmates...an average of 25 book requests a week.

--posted on LISnews

http://lisnews.org/article.pl?sid=06/07/17/135207

dan's 2 cents:

Ah, book repair. "Mends" takes on a whole new meaning with jails paperbacks. I know the plummeting feeling when a Robert McCammon or Jackie Collins is missing the last few pages, usually snatched to scratch a phone message. Where will we find these world classics again???

Since many of our books are bought from used book stores or come to us after years of circulation in a branch, we do our darnedest to patch them up again. Industrial size scotch tape works best for surgery. Though heavy-duty staples might make our "fix" last longer, we can't risk sending thick metal staples into the jail since they can be fashioned into weapons.

Certain genres are always in short supply so we have a special procedure for turning hardback discards into paperbacks, complete with their original book jackets. It is named the "Krehbiel Krunch" after a former Jails Librarian. You have to crack the tough fibers that bind the cardboard cover to the spine, then rip like crazy. The discarded cover makes a satisfying clunk as it hits the garbage can! Large Print, African-American, Spanish materials and Dictionaries often undergo this procedure. Benefit: the life of the book is extended and the librarian's muscles get toughened up. Problem: how to sell the mended books to our inmates. They are the "wrong size" and often get passed over on the bookcart. Many inmates like the mass-market feel. Small stacks of same-sized paperbacks make better barbells after they are squeezed into old socks or knotted together with torn rubber gloves. Ah, the joy of book rescue and resuscitation! Our prized paperbacks with the snazziest covers also wind up as padding for bunk beds. We would prefer they snuggle up on the back of Catherine Coulter or Nora Roberts, which are always in abundant supply. But it's usually Patricia Cornwell or James Patterson. Go figure.

All things considered, we're glad to see that Montanans create as much work for their menders as Californians do.

2006-06-20T20:52:00.000-07:00

Patron, come in....

"Choose any book you want," it says.
The iron grill above the Gate
spells out the words in cursive script.

Since I expect to be here for some time,
I'm pleased to see that reading is
an option. I see another sign:

"Patron, come in." The floor is cool,
the columns twined with marble ivy.
There are no lines to check out books.

This is no living library,
I look around the silent crypt,
a tombstone on every spine.

Some are standing tall, pristine;
others cracked and leaning.
What shall I take to read?

Misers of love and Ministers of doubt
amassed a wealth of ironies,
then left us their sad stories.

"Oh, Reader, Stop and Weep," is one
of the more maudlin titles here,
"Mon Semblable, mon Frere, " another reads!

"Au contraire!" I say, "I am a man
of mirth; there must be another gate
for those who didn't WANT to die!"

No answer. "Do any of these books
get any circulation?" I inquire.
Behind my back, the Gate creaks closed.

--dan (this might be the ideal afterlife for Anne Rice fans!)

2006-06-06T17:43:00.000-07:00

Inside FUNNIES!

Is this inmate gonna make it? You decide:

“Library Staff: I am in desperate need of some reading material A.S.A.P. please. I have read anything & everything available in my pod and cannot bear another day with nothing to occupy time except counting squares in the gate (812 per section, 12, 180 squares in all) or staring at walls lol. Anyway if possible could you please send #2 #3 #4 in the Gunslinger, Dark Tower series by Stephen King as well as anything by the following authors: Wambaugh, Turow, Sheldon, Cook, Koontz or” [Drum-roll please!] “James Patterson…I appreciate it greatly.”

This young man sure sounds like a Dot.com refugee who has fallen onto hard times or wound up on the other side of the law. Maybe it's time to create cyber-jails. It might alleviate the boredom to have touch screen walls and online university for every inmate. (I'm sure the Department of Defense would be willing to fork over the cash for a cyber-retrofit of all our nation's jails.)

Anywho, this patron will get his wished-for paperbacks: “Irreversible Errors, Vector, and Finnegan’s Week.” (James Joyce, laugh all you want at our terrible American Puns. Meanwhile, your native Ireland becomes a magnet for innovation and jobs, while here in the U.S.A., we’re fighting the war on error! oops, terror!)

2006-06-04T10:49:00.000-07:00

Judge outlaws prison group's Bible program
Saturday, June 3, 2006; Posted: 11:13 a.m. EDT (15:13 GMT)DES MOINES, Iowa (AP)

A judge has ruled that a Bible-based prison program violates the First Amendment's freedom of religion clause by using state funds to promote Christianity to inmates.Prison Fellowship Ministries, which was sued in 2003 by an advocacy group, was ordered Friday to cease its program at the Newton Correctional Facility and repay the state $1.53 million."This calls into question the funding for so many programs," said Barry Lynn, executive director of the Washington-based Americans United for Separation of Church and State, which filed the suit.

"Anyone who doesn't stop it is putting a giant 'sue me' sign on top of their building."Lynn's group accused Prison Fellowship Ministries of giving preferential treatment to inmates participating in the program. They were given special visitation rights, movie-watching privileges, access to computers and access to classes needed for early parole.

U.S. District Judge Robert Pratt called the perks "seemingly minor benefits" that constituted unfair treatment to those not in the religious program. Despite any claims of rehabilitating inmates, the program "impermissibly endorses religion," Pratt wrote.The InnerChange Freedom Initiative was implemented in Newton in 1999. State prison officials have said they hired the religious group to improve inmate behavior and reduce recidivism -- not promote Christianity.

Ministry president Mark Earley said in a statement Friday that the group plans to appeal the ruling and believes its program is constitutional."This decision, if allowed to stand, will enshrine religious discrimination," Earley said. "It has attacked the right of people of faith to operate on a level playing field in the public arena and to provide services to those who volunteered to receive them."The judge gave the group's workers 60 days to leave the prison, though he put a stay on his order, meaning the decision won't officially be implemented until the appeals process is complete.
http://www.cnn.com/2006/LAW/06/03/prison.religion.ap/

Copyright 2006 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

Dan's 2 Cents: Let the gavel fall. There shall be no “official” faith. This article highlights the inherent problem of sliding state grants into the pockets of Prison Ministries or any faith-based program. Prisons and jails are adverse environments where humans suffer.

How do Correctional Officers offer comfort to inmates that makes their suffering bearable and prepares them for life on “The Outside?” In Iowa, they call in the God-Squad!Instead of trying to humanize the penal system with progressive training to staff and prison educators PAID FROM WITHIN, the state seeks to CONTRACT OUT its responsibility for rehabilitation. Why does the State back away from the untidy personal aspects of incarceration? By doing so, it becomes increasingly mechanical, as if housing, feeding and crowd-control were its only mandates.

Truth is, behind those prison walls, real people are guarding other real people. Claude Brown’s memoir, Manchild in the Promised Land, showed how NY Juvenile Corrections conducted God-free rehabilitation back in the fifties. It was done man to man, person to person. They didn’t always get it right, but they made an effort.This case illustrates the burden of being an American in 2006.

How did we become a “Prison Society,” happy to warehouse human beings? We have created a costly “Us” and “Them,” yet the ordinary tax-paying citizen receives little benefit from this dehumanizing process. Our prisons do not increase public safety, though a thousand sheriffs and politicians campaign on this platform. Incarceration does create jobs in the short-run; but, in the long run, state economies become dependent on locking people up and locking people OUT.With tax-exempt, non-profit churches now reaching into the State Treasuries, it is obvious that our society depends on creating a “Fallen People” that the Saints can coerce back into conformity while they are behind bars. This access to inmates is based on the concept that you cannot “shut faith out” of public places. I agree completely, but the transaction is private and voluntary.

In one Christian story, Jesus walks through the wall and appears inside an upper room without using the door or stairs. There you have it, plain and simple: Faith has a free pass. Why mix that up with money—unless your goal is to get rich manipulating the vulnerable inmate who seeks release from guilt and relief from boredom? This greed is what seems to be behind PFM Director, Mark Early’s, desire for “an even playing field.”The game changes when you make the religious counselor—the friend to the friendless—his paid confessor. There is then manipulation on both sides.

In this Iowa case, inmates vying for precious privileges were able to play the God-Squad for a bigger share of the prison pie. Is it right or fair for them to be fast-tracked for signing on to God’s Plan? The fact that the PFM inmates received more perks and benefits than other inmates, however, is a sub-issue of the primary problem: turning rehab into religion. (For this reason, blame should not be pinned on the religious program; but on the correctional facility, for allowing inmates unfair advantages. The Correctional staff should broaden opportunities for the growth of all their inmates.)

In conclusion, I am not criticizing Prisons and Jails for contracting out services to non-profit organizations. Our library provides a regular library service consisting of all the books and magazine choices one would find in any public library (with some minor exceptions.) However, we have a contractual relationship that is clearly distinguished from the relationship of the MANY religious volunteers who serve the inmates. These volunteers seek volunteers from the prison population, and, thereby, enjoy a Freedom of Association—and Freedom of Religion—regardless of watchtowers, fences and bars. Let’s rehabilitate the Constitution and teach the responsibilities of citizenship to inmates. That is the kind of program that will prepare men and women for Liberty—or life on America’s streets.

2006-06-01T17:33:00.000-07:00

12 is the luckiest number

An inmate approached our book cart and knelt down beside another guy browsing the bottom shelf. When asked what he was looking for, he said, “Something real that’s made up.” The other inmate chuckled at the young man’s turn of phrase.

Since we are not stocked with bestsellers in “Creative Non-fiction,” I knew I was in trouble. With a little coaxing, we moved past history, crime, and biography to fiction that seemed like it could really happen. Ah, that strategic word, “Plausible!”

“I’ve only read 12 books in my life and I read ‘em all in jail,” he said.

I asked him, “Of those 12 books, what was your favorite one?"

“Well, it was by someone named Nancy or Nancy was in the book,” said the duodeca-libral inmate.

“Nancy Friday?” I asked, knowing how popular this expert on “Women’s fantasies” was among our connoisseurs in the “Men’s Division!”

“Who is she?” said the inmate.

I struck out, unable locate the Nancy of his dreams. (I had forgotten the realism of Nancy Taylor Rosenberg.) We did settle on one of J.A. Jance’s Seattle mysteries. And I saw him pluck a beautiful anthology of African-American poets from the carts. After all, what is more real AND more imaginary than a classic poem?

2006-05-25T16:36:00.000-07:00

Common Ground behind bars

We are often asked for religious materials when we are out in the jail distributing books. The Chaplain usually fields most of these requests. Today, Vidya was asked for books on God and she quickly browsed the bookcart for the tell-tale orange dot denoting "Religion/Philosophy." She found a couple titles and handed what she found to the inmate. We only had material relating to Christianity and Buddhism today. The inmate looked them over and said, "I'm a Muslim," and Vidya apologized, (wondering if she should have asked him his religion beforehand.)

The inmate surprised her by saying, "It doesn't matter; these books point to the same God, anyway. I'll take 'em.

2006-05-23T15:43:00.000-07:00

1 in 136 U.S. Residents Behind Bars
By ELIZABETH WHITE

WASHINGTON (AP) - Prisons and jails added more than 1,000 inmates each week for a year, putting almost 2.2 million people, or one in every 136 U.S. residents, behind bars by last summer. ....Of particular note was the gain of 33,539 inmates in jails, the largest increase since 1997, researcher Allen J. Beck said. That was a 4.7 percent growth rate, compared with a 1.6 percent increase in people held in state and federal prisons.

Prisons accounted for about two-thirds of all inmates, or 1.4 million, while the other third, nearly 750,000, were in local jails, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics. Beck, the bureau's chief of corrections statistics, said the increase in the number of people in the 3,365 local jails is due partly to their changing role. Jails often hold inmates for state or federal systems, as well as people who have yet to begin serving a sentence.

"The jail population is increasingly unconvicted," Beck said. "Judges are perhaps more reluctant to release people pretrial." (John Grisham donations WELCOME!) The report by the Justice Department agency found that 62 percent of people in jails have not been convicted, meaning many of them are awaiting trial.

Overall, 738 people were locked up for every 100,000 residents, ....Men were 10 times to 11 times more likely than women to be in prison or jail, but the number of women behind bars was growing at a faster rate, said Paige M. Harrison, the report's other author.

The racial makeup of inmates changed little in recent years, Beck said. In the 25-29 age group, an estimated 11.9 percent of black men were in prison or jails, compared with 3.9 percent of Hispanic males and 1.7 percent of white males.

Marc Mauer, executive director of The Sentencing Project, ... criticized sentencing guidelines, which he said remove judges' discretion, and said arrests for drug and parole violations swell prisons. "If we want to see the prison population reduced, we need a much more comprehensive approach to sentencing and drug policy," he said.

COMMENT from Jailslibrarian

Jail Librarians are like Wide Receivers, we go out for the passes that come our way. And the end zone keeps receding down the field, with the magic words "Fiscal Year!" It is a daily challenge to match a shrinking book budget with a 4.7 growth rate in jailed "patrons." This affects crowd control; the patience and workload of deputies (who give the yea or nay to our service,) AND the circulation of our precious paperpacks. How many hands really touch our books?

Some improvisations in our play book are the following: holiday handouts; comic books from the local 1/2 priced bookseller; poetry selections; inspirational bookmarks (our most popular one featured a poem by Assata Shakur,) & the perennial favorite, Gothic Lettering. (Yep, we are the source of innovation in the art of temporary tattoos. One Housing Unit asked us to stop bringing National Geographics because the inmates were dissolving the beautiful inks and applying it to their skin.) All these "extras" help inmates face the sensory deprivation of their living quarters; they complement our bins of paperbacks and magazines really well.

Feel free to post suggestions to help us continue what one member of our staff describes as a "Smoke and Mirrors" show!

Here's a snip from Assata's poem, "Leftovers, what is left?"
Assata, p. 146 (Lawrence Hill Books, 1987)

After the bars and the gates
and the degradation,
What is left?
...
I mean, like, where is the sun?
Where are her arms and
where are her kisses?
There are lip-prints on my pillow--
i am searching
What is left?
....

2006-05-19T12:35:00.000-07:00

Mr. Librarian, remember me?

"Of course," I said to the aging inmate, "Mississippi!"

Two years ago, I was setting up our bookcart to serve the 300 men in a Minimum security house and he was on the work detail to clean floors and distribute food. Since the workers in a house are usually out when we arrive and on the good side of the deputies, they get first dibs on our library books. M. always held back and let others pick books first. That day, however, I really scored when I handed him a "True Crime" book about murders in Mississippi. I guess he'll never forget me, though I hope my notoriety wasn't gained for promoting True Crime!

Why distribute True Crime books to criminals, you ask? Incarcerated folks have the keenest sense of justice of any people I've met, with the possible exception of my older sister during a board game. Like the vast TV audience of shows like Cops, these inmates want to see punishment meted out for crimes worse than ones they have committed. Secondly, most inmates who've done time in the State Penitentiary have had to stay out of the way of serious criminals at one time or another so they are VERY interested in learning about the minds of people who make it into an Ann Rule book.

Back to my pal, Mississippi. I had seen him all over the jail during the past five years and was not thrilled today to see him chilling in Maximum Security. He seemed more suited to "the other side," where the crimes were less severe and the population more likely to be released. M. sat at the metal tables watching us distribute books to the men of his house--190 brawny or scrawny men, vying for one of the payphones or trading the books and magazines we'd just delivered. He said wearily that his work felt a lot like babysitting, which was an accurate assessment, considering the age difference between him and the large number of twenty-year olds locked up there. The energy in the cell block was palpable. Mississippi could have been tired from rising at 4 a.m.; but there is a more profound reason he may have felt worn out.

How many inmates face exhaustion from life, itself; from disappointment, from the depression that comes from aging behind a 12-foot fence, strung with wire? How does our library service help a tired pod-worker "keep his hand on the plough," moving forward. I think we select books and keep returning for a very simple reason. "We are all one spirit, we are all one name." This is how Peter Yarrow told the story in his song, River of Jordan (1972):

I traveled the banks of the River of Jordan
To find where it flows to the sea.
I looked in the eyes of the cold and the hungry
And I saw I was looking at me.
I wanted to know if life had a purpose
And what it all means in the end.
In the silence I listened to voices inside me
And they told me again and again.

The is only one river. There is only one sea.
And it flows through you, and it flows through me.
There is only one people. We are one and the same.
We are all one spirit. We are all one name.
We are the father, mother, daughter and son.
From the dawn of creation, we are one.
We are one.

Every blade of grass on the mountain
Every drop in the sea
Every cry of a newborn baby
Every prayer to be free
Every hope at the end of a rainbow
Every song ever sung
Is a part of the family of woman and man
And that means everyone.

We are only one river. We are only one sea.
And it flows through you, and it flows through me.
We are only one people. We are one and the same.
We are all one spirit. We are all one name.
We are the father, mother, daughter and son
From the dawn of creation, we are one.
We are one.

Nope, I'll never forget Mississippi.

2006-05-05T09:22:00.000-07:00

..."Parting is such sweet sorrow".

One of our own here at the Inside is leaving us for a new job. The Inside is not going away. Others will be taking up the writing assignments and posting news about our Jail experiences. Last days can be stressful for all concerned as saying goodbye is never easy or simple and change always involves loss and uncertainty. But those waiting for books at the jail must be served and continually tell us how very much appreciated we are. Jails service is one of the purest forms of library service today and we are privileged to serve.

Upcoming feature plans include a wish list of paperbacks and magazines.

2006-04-23T09:24:00.000-07:00

LA Times via SJ Mercury today reports an explosion in the number of inmates the California's prisons must house. As many as 23,000 felons and an overall total of 193,000 new inmates by 2011. This increase is taking place amid turmoil on the administrative side of the prison system. Bond sales are being purposed by Govenor Schwarzenegger to raise over $13 billion. In the meantime, the facilities are so crowded that tempers are steadily rising in the prison population. Correctional officers worry that it is only a matter of time before tensions boil over.

2006-04-21T13:58:00.000-07:00

LibraryLawBlog via Retrofitted Librarian:

Interesting post about "Dangerous Reference" and the line between reference and "assessory after the fact".

2006-04-11T09:19:00.000-07:00

Random Request for 4/11/06:

"Any books on human physiology or biochemistry and pinocle cards please."

2006-04-08T08:53:00.000-07:00

From Acorn:
According to Christina Rathbone, author of A World Apart: Women, Prison, and Life Behind Bars, "The U.S. incarcerates more people each year than any other place in the world other than China. The fastest-growing group within those incarcerated is women." Rathbone details the women in Michigan state prison and the gardening. More.

2006-04-05T06:49:00.000-07:00

This is our common work space where our processing of books and magazines occur. Our industrious volunteers and regular staff stamp or label as needed, remove the smelly perfume samples (more on that later), and cut off any personal identification on the magazines. From there, the items are shelved either in the magazine area or paperback shelves.

We have a nice logo on our Jail van. We can get about 30 bins inside if we stuff it to the gills. Our usual load is about 4 bins per Housing Unit that we visit. We visit 2 or 3 Housing Units per visit.

2006-04-02T10:08:00.000-07:00

Moving.
The Jails Librarian is moving! Please be patient.