Among all of our juvenile detention centers across the United States--that is, in our prisons for people under the age of 18--there exist only six staffed libraries. Six. That's all.

It's a shameful number.

I learned this horrifying statistic last weekend from Rukshana Singh, a panelist from UCLA's MLIS program, at the annual California Library Association Conference in Long Beach, CA. The panel consisted of five librarians who work or have worked in three of California's prisons for young people.

Panelist Alison McKee is the librarian for Contra Costa County Juvenile Hall, about an hour outside of San Francisco. She secured a $100,000 grant from the Dean and Margaret Lesher Foundation to build a library there. A third panelist, Amy Cheney, works with the award-winning Write to Read program in Alameda County Juvenile Hall, where she serves as a librarian and brings published authors to the facility to speak and teach writing workshops. Two other women on the panel, Melissa Elliott and Lisa Lepore, described volunteering at the Barry J. Nidorf Juvenile Detention Center in Sylmar, CA while earning degrees in library science at UCLA. When they started working at the center, they asked what books were available for the inmates. Someone showed them the facility's school library, which was then closed, and they found books such as Louisa May Alcott's Little Women and a novel by Scott O'Dell (the children's author of, among many other books, The Island of the Blue Dolphins)--and this was a facility holding 85 percent minority males. In a box of donated books in the living units they found various bibles, the Koran, and books by Rush Limbaugh.

The State of California has more prisons than universities. Here's how it breaks down:

17 youth authority sites
33 adult prisons
29 state universities

In Los Angeles County alone, somewhere between 1,650 and 2,000 youth are serving time in the region's three juvenile detention centers. Another 15,000 young adults between the ages of 18 and 24 are serving time in L.A. County jails. None of these young people have access to a library.

I asked panelist and librarian Alison McKee why there are virtually no libraries in our youth prisons. "It's an invisible population," she said, adding that creating new programs within juvenile detention systems is complicated, requiring cooperation among three huge bureaucracies: county public library systems, the probation system, and school departments. "It's tough to get those three to collaborate," she said.

Alison added that existing public libraries are already scrambling for funds, despite a large, voting public actively working in their communities to rally funds for libraries. "Incarcerated teens are powerless," she said. "And they're disenfranchised."

Lisa Lepore, also from UCLA, mentioned studies showing that literacy development reduces recidivism. "Read THE POWER OF READING by [Stephen D.] Krashen," she recommended. "Krashen also has shown us that the number of books in the home influences one's ability to read. In Beverly Hills, each home has on average 212 books. In Watts, each home has on average just one."

When I asked Alison if people can donate books to juvenile halls, she answered with an emphatic "Yes!" She added that it's best to donate softcover books, as some centers will not allow hardcovers, which might be used as weapons. To find out where in your area to donate books, call the front desk at the juvenile detention center nearest you, explain that you have books to donate, and ask where to bring or send them.

What kinds of books are best to donate? The panelists recommended realistic books with subjects that reflect the inmates' lives. Books about gangs, drugs, overcoming abuse, teen pregnancy, and coping with alcoholism have great appeal. Books on drawing, graphic novels, banned books, animal stories, the Simpsons, and James Paterson's novels--especially the Alex Cross series--are popular. One panelist described this array of books as an example of the variety that's snatched up by incarcerated teens: Garcia Marquez's ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF SOLITUDE; THE FIRST PART LAST, by Angela Johnson; Heyerdahl's KON-TIKI: ACROSS THE PACIFIC IN A RAFT; Betty Smith's classic, A TREE GROWS IN BROOKLYN; and HOLES, by Louis Sachar.

If you'd like to participate in an on-line discussion about books for incarcerated youth, visit http://lists.ala.org/wws/info/yalsa-lockdown.

And here's a challenge: the first 10 people to send 20 or more softcover books to a juvenile detention center will receive a free copy of NOT LIKE YOU and mention of your helpful act in my newsletter. If you do this, make sure you have contacted someone at the juvenile detention center who can handle book donations! After you send the books, send me the list of book titles, the name of the center, contact info for the person at that center to whom you sent the books, plus your address, and I'll send NOT LIKE YOU out to you. (I'm at [email protected].) Or, if you like, I'll donate your copy of NOT LIKE YOU to a center that can accept hardcover books.

To help you select books for donation, here are book wish lists for two juvenile halls:

The Nidorf Juvenile Detention Center in Sylmar has a "Beyond Four Walls Wish List" at http://www.amazon.com/gp/registry/registry.html/103-9981390-4302204?ie=UTF8&type=wishlist&id=3GB06L568M0Y3.

Alameda County Juvenile Hall also has a wish list, at http://www.amazon.com/gp/registry/registry.html/103-2725683-8468648?ie=UTF8&type=wishlist&id=3QP59LMAIPOAF.

New books are appreciated, but so are used books. Consult the wish lists and see what you can find used if your donation budget is tight.

You will feel soooo good.


xodeborah
http://www.deborahdavisauthor.com