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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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. :-)

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.

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...."

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!

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!

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.

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!

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.

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.

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.

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.

"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.

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

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.