For more than 50 years, the Prison Book Program has been built on one simple idea: Everybody deserves the freedom to read. The Quincy-based nonprofit sends tens of thousands of free books each year to incarcerated people across the country.
A good book can take you anywhere — and in some of the most isolating places, these books can be a lifeline. Here’s just some of the testimony from behind bars, read by some members of the GBH newsroom:
“Since being incarcerated, I only want to read. Reading takes me out of my prison setting and keeps me out of trouble.”
“Your book program has been invaluable to me during my incarceration. I’ve worked hard to read and learn so that my time isn’t wasted.”
“The books that you’ve provided for me over the years have been my beacon of light behind these walls and gates and tons of razor wire.”
“For 46 years, I have been incarcerated. And for a decade, your Prison Book Program has nourished me with books that keep prison from entering my mind.”
This week’s Joy Beat is celebrating the invaluable work of the Prison Book Program and the volunteers who are changing lives from the outside in. Executive Director Kelly Brotzman joined GBH’s All Things Considered host Arun Rath to share more about the program. What follows is a lightly edited transcript of their conversation.
Arun Rath: This is such a wonderful thing. My mind just goes wild thinking about prison and books because of all the literary references — going back to the “Count of Monte Cristo” — and actual, real-world events, like Malcom X writing about what it was like to read books in prison.
With the Prison Book Program, how did this get started? What was the impetus behind its founding?
Kelly Brotzman: It was founded in 1972 by a group of, I would say, political radicals who — you know, it was the height of the rights movements. Civil rights, women’s rights, gay rights. And there was a sense that incarcerated people were part of that movement.
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There were a number of incidents inside prisons and jails in that time period — Attica, San Quentin, some other places — and so this group of people decided that it was just as important for incarcerated people to have access to books about their rights and about liberation from oppression as it was for anyone else. Their mission was always to get that kind of reading material inside prisons and jails.
It didn’t take long, though, until mass incarceration really started ramping up. Along the ’80s, ’90s and so on — when the prison population started multiplying four- to fivefold, which happened over about a 20-year period — that’s really when the program started carrying all kinds of reading material, not necessarily just philosophical, political-type material. We get requests for every type of book you can imagine. And so we basically function as a free supplier to over a thousand prisons and jails across the country.
Rath: It’s fascinating hearing about scaling this up so massively during that period in which mass incarceration became a thing. Talk a little bit more about that and how, I imagine, you were working with feedback from prisoners as that was happening.
Brotzman: Yeah. During the ’80s and ’90s, not only did the size of the prison system increase dramatically, [but] conditions inside prisons and jails really, really changed.
Services — things like programs, treatments, those kinds of things — became much more austere. There was a real decrease in interest among prison officials in rehabilitating. There was a philosophy that said, you know, “It’s not possible. It’s not possible to rehabilitate incarcerated people.”
“Most people tell us they share books we send them with eight, 10, 12 other people, and then it gives them something to talk about with those other people. It’s not just the reading of the book; it’s everything else the book does.”Kelly Brotzman, executive director of the Prison Book Program
There was a lot more time in-cell, and that always corresponds with the onset of mental illness, frequently, behavioral problems and disturbances. The need for something as simple as a book just to pass the time, to have something to do constructively, and having access to books became much, much more important.
It still is the case. Books have a significance to incarcerated people that non-incarcerated people often fail to understand. It’s more than just a book; it’s a survival tool.
It’s also a way that people tell us they connect with others. Most people tell us they share books we send them with eight, 10, 12 other people, and then it gives them something to talk about with those other people. It’s not just the reading of the book; it’s everything else the book does that makes having access to books so important for incarcerated people.
Rath: I want to hear about the volunteers. Talk about the value of connecting people from outside the prison system with those inside through this kind of work.
Brotzman: Yeah, I really think that’s the special sauce of what we do at Prison Book Program. We have very few paid staff, but we have thousands of people who give us their time. Really, all the book requests that we fulfill are fulfilled by volunteers.
An amazing array of people come and spend their time with us, reading letters and requests sent in by incarcerated people and sometimes their loved ones, and picking out the very best books from our library for each request and packaging the books up for the mail, including a personal note to each recipient, which is a really important aspect of what we do.
In doing so, our volunteers really get to know a group of people that is really difficult for the general public to get to know. That’s a really rare opportunity. What you come to understand — I think what most of our volunteers come to understand — is that incarcerated people are just like non-incarcerated people. They’re complex, they’re interesting, they’re multifaceted, they are more than just the worst thing they’ve ever done.
There’s that recognition of shared humanity, and it’s really that connection that I think makes our volunteers keep on coming.
Rath: You know, I’ve spent a fair amount reporting on one of the most invisible prisoner populations: the prison at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba. Kelly, I’ve just been thinking as you’re talking, one of the most remarkable places there is the prison library and a very dedicated librarian.
It’s just extraordinary that 50 years into the Prison Book Program, this is something that’s now almost considered universally a right. It’s an amazing transformation.
Brotzman: Yeah, it is. One of the things that’s important about the service we provide — which is providing books directly to incarcerated people to have as their personal property in their cell — is because while most prisons do have a library, most jails do not. And just because your facility has a library doesn’t necessarily mean that you can go to it or that it is useful to you.
We got a letter just the other day from someone who said: “Our prison doesn’t have a librarian at present, so the library is closed and locked at all times. We cannot go to it, we cannot check books out.” So people are really left with the books that are their own personal property, and you can do with them whatever you choose.
Some people, especially with reference material — our most popular request is and always has been a dictionary — want that kind of reference material as part of the allotment of books that they’re allowed to have in their cell. So, we like to know that people have access to the books that they get from us at all times.
If you’d like to make a nomination for the Joy Beat, leave us a voicemail at (617) 300-BEAT [2328].
