LIBRARIES IN CORRECTIONS FACILITIES AND PRISONS: A COMMUNITY ANALYSIS AND INFORMATION SERVICES IDENTIFICATION Luke Sutton, Sheila McNair, Anna Kozlowska, Lauren McLellan, Vanessa Liptack, Liz DeBacker

The Incarcerated Community: A General Overview  Demographics  Level of Education  Linguistics  Providing information about facilities in Illinois  Juvenile to adult

Why we chose this community  Interested in the dichotomy between rights to education/information access and prisoners “deserving punishment”  Are libraries used as tools for rehabilitation?  Filtering tools within a prison library-Are there limits to what prisoners can read?  Do prisoners have access to technology/Internet?  How is library visitation regulated? Are books checked-out?

Clark County Juvenile Detention Center  Fort Vancouver Regional Library Foundation and the Fort Vancouver Regional Library District have been working with the Clark County Juvenile Detention Center (JDC) since 2003 to establish a special collection of books inside the JDC so that teens will have access to reading materials and programs that will improve their reading and literacy skills. 

Juvenile Justice Facility in Illinois- Warrenville (as of 2008)  IDJJ Formation  Budget…or lack thereof  All female facility  Average age  Average capacity  General Comparison to Illinois DOC

Better Library Programs in Other States  Ohio  Arizona  Oregon  California

Demographics of Ohio Youths being served by ODYS and its libraries  92.6% male  7.4% female  38.5% white  54.9% African American  6.6% other  Ages 10-21

Better Examples of Literacy Services in Juvenile Correctional Facilities- Ohio  Facilities-are certified high schools  Part of ODYS (Ohio Department of Youth Services)  Run by professional librarians, sometimes with student assistants  Flexible circulation policies because of frequent relocation of students  Have access to restricted online catalog & intranet  GED preparation, READ 180 program, and Striving to Achieve In Reading and Re-entry (StARR)

Ohio DYS & Literacy Improvement  Read 180- “five-year 14 million dollar grant each facility [8 in Ohio] received from the Ohio Department of Education (ODE) to be used over 5 years.” (Herring, 158). Seeks to combat adult illiteracy by preventative measures ODYS 1 of 8 institutions to receive the grant  Dedicated librarians in ODYS Respond to students requests (e.g., spending more of the budget on graphic novels) Requests author visits to engage the youth

Anna’s State for Youth Correctional Facilities

Anna’s Slide Continued

Relationship between Youth and Adult Incarcerated Communities

Information Needs for Inmates As defined by Library Standards for Adult Correctional Institutions (Association for Specialized and Cooperative Library Agencies [ASCLA], 1992:  “Health information, information for non-English speakers, and parenting information are three of the most important emerging information needs within today’s prisons.” (46).  In need of information:  on institution regulations and procedures  to maintain contact with the outside community  on vocational skills  education  support for rehabilitative programs  self-directed reading for lifelong learning and personal needs  recreational reading  on reentry into the community.” (46).

Characteristics of our chosen community Demographics from “Library Services Behind Bars”:  “70% of inmates scored at a below fourth-grade literacy level, and other research states that 75% of inmates are below a twelfth-grade level of literacy. Nineteen percent are completely illiterate. Sixty-eight percent of all state prisoners did not receive a high school diploma.” (44).  Could good literacy programs at youth detention centers help this problem?

Demographics cont’d  ”In state prisons, 73% of women and 55% of men suffered from some type of mental health problem.” (44). (health information needs)  Elderly population: “A study by the National Center on Institutions and alternatives published in 1998 found that there has been substantial growth in the elderly population of prisons over the last several decades…1997, there were more than 50,000, and it is predicted that by the year 2010 this number will be around 200,000.” (44). (health information needs)  ”From 1990 to 2000, there was an 87% increase in the number of mothers in jail, and a 61% increase in fathers in jail.” (45). (parenting information needs)

Members of the Incarcerated Community and the Digital Divide  Especially problematic for those serving extended amount of time.  Ways around this problem: “In Alaska, the department of corrections has recently contracted with Lexis-Nexis to provide a digital law library for inmate use.  Similar setups would be helpful with health information also.  Difficult in other areas where such a direct route isn’t as effective, as in the need for information on child care.

Technology and Prison Libraries  Total budgets for materials: $0 to $72,000  How budgets are spent  No relationship between library budget and access to computers  Common electronic resources   Resources training

Updates in Technology Access  Increased use of automated technology in facilities in the last ten years  More than four-fifths of libraries said computers were available at their facilities  Staff and inmate access to the Internet appears to be growing; nearly a fifth of librarians (18%) now report having Internet access  Smaller institutions were more likely to have made much greater use of automated technology (70%) than either medium (60%) or large size institutions (50%) over the past ten years

Discussion

Works Cited  “The Ohio Department of Youth Services Juvenile Prison Library System” by Diedra N. Herring  “Library Services Behind Bars” by Sandra Annette Greenway