Feature Stories : Jail Library Group
It was the author C.S. Lewis who said, “We read to know we are not alone.” Lewis knew that books offer a chance to go places and meet people without even leaving your chair. Most people probably take this for granted. However, for inmates at two Dane County jail facilities, books provide one of their only connections to the outside world.
The books are provided by the Jail Library Group (JLG), which began as a graduate student project at UW-Madison’s School of Library and Information Studies in 1992. It has grown over the years to include more than 30 volunteers giving nearly 850 hours of their time to fulfill hundreds of requests for materials, every year.
The mission of the JLG, as stated on its Web site is to provide educational, recreational and community resource reading materials to the residents of the jail facilities in Dane County, Wisconsin. The JLG serves about 1,000 inmates annually at two jails located in downtown Madison, the Public Safety Building and the City County Building.
Most county jail inmates are either awaiting trial or their post-sentencing transfer to a prison, and their stays are typically less than one year. Due to the transient nature of the jail population, jails offer fewer opportunities for education, employment, and recreation than prisons. This void makes the work of JLG all the more needed.
The group collects books at three locations around the UW-Madison campus as well as at the Dane County Legal Resource Center in the county courthouse. Volunteers distribute the books to the jail housing units once a week.
In addition, inmates in the two jail facilities made individual requests for more than 1,800 specific books and magazines in 2005. Fulfilling these requests can be a significant challenge at times, as the collection is comprised mostly of donations. Examples of highly sought-after items in short supply include dictionaries, encyclopedias, and materials in Spanish, poetry, and books by fiction writers like Donald Goines, James Patterson, and Dan Brown. The group maintains a wish list at Amazon.com to help track requests.
The JLG not only delivers books, it allows inmates to read to their children through a program called Kids' Connection, a service created in 1997 for inmates in the Public Safety Building. Kids’ Connection helps parents make audio recordings of themselves reading to their children and then sends the book & tape to the child. The program served more than 100 children in 2005.
According to the 2005 Jail Library Group Annual Report, Kids Connection participants “were unanimous in their praise and thanks for the program, and were particularly pleased to have this special way to keep in touch with their kids. For many of the inmates, this was a chance to send their child a birthday or Christmas gift that they otherwise couldn't afford.”
Looking towards its 15th year anniversary in June 2007, the Jail Library Group remains dedicated to connecting inmates, many of whom struggle with literacy skills, with materials they want and need -- with the idea that the connection is also about building community. The men and women in the jail are neighbors. Community support through donated materials and time helps bring us all together.