Who We Are
Book 'Em is an all-volunteer, non-profit organization that sends free educational books and quality reading material to prisoners and prison libraries in Pennsylvania and across the country.
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What We Do
Book 'Em sends hundreds of packages of books each month to prisoners, free of charge. We also send books directly to prison libraries and to educators who work within prisons.
The vast majority of our packages are sent directly to self-educating prisoners who write to us with their requests. Once they tell our volunteers what subject areas they are interested in, we send them books that are related to that subject.
Volunteers with packages at the post office
Book 'Em also publishes and distributes pamphlets for the benefit and education of prisoners, including resource guides for prisoners and prison advocates. Our most recent publication is the Pennsylvania Prison
Directory Action, 2009 edition.
Since 2000, we have sent over 6000 packages of books, helping over 4000 individual prisoners. Click here to read some of the responses we've received from prisoners.
Whom do we serve?
Book 'Em's primary mission is to serve inmates in Pennsylvania. As of May 2010, there are 51,317 inmates in the 26 state correctional institutions and other facilities in the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections.1 As of June 24, 2010 there are 12,865 inmates in the 14 federal prisons in Pennsylvania.2
Our secondary focus is serving inmates in Virginia and West Virginia, because no other books-to-prisoners programs in the US focus primarily on inmates in those states . We also extend our focus to inmates anywhere in solitary confinement, federal prisons, women inmates, Native American inmates and those interested in Native American literature.
We do our best to also provide books to inmates in the rest of the country, although we forward requests to other organizations who focus on other states, when possible.
At this time, the state of Oregon does not allow Book 'Em's packages to enter any of their prisons. We are only able to serve females, not males, who are imprisoned in Texas due to financial limitations. In all other states, prisons either allow or disallow our packages on an institution-by-institution basis.
Why?
Rehabilitation was at one time a stated goal of the prison system. Today, funding for most educational and rehabilitation programs, including prison libraries, has been cut or completely eliminated. In 2010, the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections spends over $26,500 to incarcerate each inmate at a state correctional institution, yet sets aside only $818 per inmate for education and training.3 Corrections has become more about warehousing offenders than rehabilitation or education.
Book 'Em aims to confront the negativities of our prison system by giving prisoners the opportunity for self-education while behind bars, which can lead to rehabilitation. Our group's actions also seek to reduce prisoners' feelings of isolation, which we believe helps to counteract the dehumanizing effects of the prison system. We further believe that the work Book 'Em does gives people in prison hope for their future and helps to remind them that every single person on our earth, even one who is behind bars, is deserving of human compassion.
Books-to-prisoners programs are extremely important due to prison restrictions which prevent most prisoners from receiving books sent by friends or relatives. Book 'Em is able to bypass these restrictions by working with The Big Idea: a local independent bookstore that does have permission to send books to prisoners.
Do educational programs actually help prisoners and society? A study of released inmates in Maryland, Minnesota, and Ohio showed that participants in education programs were significantly less likely to be re-arrested (57% of non-participants vs. 48% for participants), re-convicted (35% vs. 27%), and re-incarcerated (31% vs. 21%).
Click here to find out how you can help Book 'Em!
Feel free to visit our weekly book packing sessions on Sundays from 4:00 to 7:00 p.m. in the basement of the Thomas Merton Center, 5129 Penn Avenue, Pittsburgh, PA 15224, in Pittsburgh's Garfield neighborhood. There is always great company and conversation, and often music and snacks.