Prison Fellowship is the world's largest Christian nonprofit organization for prisoners, former prisoners, and their families, and a leading advocate for justice reform.
Books to Prisoners is an umbrella term for organizations that mail free reading material to prison inmates.
A prison nursery is a section of a prison that houses incarcerated mothers and their very young children. Prison nurseries are not common in correctional facilities in the United States, although prior to the 1950s many states had them and they are widespread throughout the rest of the world.
Internationalist Books and Community Center, located in Carrboro, North Carolina, was a volunteer operated infoshop, non-profit collective, and community center for local activists. The store name was a reference to the political philosophy of internationalism. Often, the center was called "The Internationalist" or merely "Eye Books" by its volunteers, members, and supporters.
The United States in 2022 had the fifth highest incarceration rate in the world, at 541 people per 100,000. Between 2019 and 2020, the United States saw a significant drop in the total number of incarcerations. State and federal prison and local jail incarcerations dropped by 14% from 2.1 million in 2019 to 1.8 million in mid-2020. The incarceration total has risen since then. In 2018, the United States had the highest incarceration rate in the world.
A prison, also known as a jail, gaol, penitentiary, detention center, correction center, correctional facility, remand center, hoosegow, and slammer, is a facility where people are imprisoned under the authority of the state, generally as punishment for various crimes. Authorities most commonly use prisons within a criminal-justice system: people charged with crimes may be imprisoned until their trial; those who have pled or been found guilty of crimes at trial may be sentenced to a specified period of imprisonment.
The Lucy Parsons Center, located in Jamaica Plain, Boston, Massachusetts, is a radical, nonprofit independent bookstore and self-managed social center. Formed out of the Red Word bookstore, it is collectively run by volunteers. The center provides reading material, space for individuals to drop in, and a free space for meetings and events.
PEN Center USA was a branch of PEN, an international literary and human rights organization. It was one of two PEN International Centers in the United States, the other being the PEN America in New York City. On March 1, 2018, PEN Center USA unified under the PEN America umbrella as the PEN America Los Angeles office. PEN Center USA was founded in 1943 and incorporated as a nonprofit association in 1981. Much of PEN Center USA's programming continues out of the PEN America Los Angeles office, including the Emerging Voices Fellowship, PEN In the Community writing residencies and guest speaker program, and the PEN Presents conversation series.
BookEnds is a non-profit organization based in Southern California that helps children collect books and donate them to other children in areas of low literacy. It was founded in 1998 by the mother-and-son team of Robin and Brandon Keefe in Agoura Hills. Brandon, then eight years old and in the third grade, led his school class in a book drive to build a library at a local home for abused children.
Boxcar Books was a non-profit, independent bookstore, infoshop, and community center in Bloomington, Indiana. Collectively run by volunteers, Boxcar Books was "one of the highest-volume zine sellers" in the United States. According to its website, the store existed to "promote reading, self-education, social equality, and social welfare through increased accessibility to literature and workshops." Boxcar Books was for a time also the home of the Midwest Pages to Prisoners Project, a non-profit organization that distributes books and reading materials to prisoners. By the end of 2017, Boxcar Books had closed their operations.
The Innovations in Reading Prize was an annual award given to organizations and individuals who "developed innovative means of creating and sustaining a lifelong love of reading." The prize was awarded by the National Book Foundation, presenter of the National Book Awards. The Innovations in Reading prize was founded in 2009, and from 2009 to 2014, the National Book Foundation recognized up to five winners, who each received $2,500. Beginning in 2015, the Foundation began recognizing a single $10,000 prize winner each year, as well as four honorable mentions. In 2018, the Foundation began recognizing each honorable mention organization with a $1,000 prize. The final award was given out in 2020.
Books Through Bars is an American organization that works to provide quality reading material to prisoners in Pennsylvania and surrounding states. Members of New Society Publishers of Philadelphia founded Books Through Bars in 1990. Books Through Bars was separately incorporated as a nonprofit organization on March 19, 2001. There are approximately 30 similar, but unaffiliated, books to prisoners organizations throughout the United States.
Bound Together is an anarchist bookstore and visitor attraction on Haight Street in the Haight-Ashbury neighborhood of San Francisco. Its Lonely Planet review in 2016, commenting on its multiple activities, states that it "makes us tools of the state look like slackers". The bookstore carries new and used books as well as local authors.
Norway's criminal justice system focuses on the principles of restorative justice and the rehabilitation of prisoners. Correctional facilities in Norway focus on maintaining custody of the offender and attempting to make them functioning members of society. Norway's prison system is renowned as one of the most effective and humane in the world.
Open Books is a nonprofit organization based in Chicago, Illinois, that sells donated books to fund literacy programs for kids. Founded by Stacy Ratner in 2006, Open Books has since started several literacy programs for kids, and has taken part in literacy events in Chicago. Open Books has three store locations, based in Pilsen, West Loop, and Logan Square areas of Chicago. Open Books employs adult volunteers who work in their bookstores, and with participants during literacy workshops.
In the United States of America, prisoner law refers to litigation that determines the freedoms that a prisoner either holds or loses when they are incarcerated. This includes the end of the hands-off doctrine and the ability to be protected by the first, fourth, eighth, and fourteenth amendments. Furthermore, prisoner laws regulate the ways in which individuals experience privacy in a prison setting. Important case laws have arisen through time that have either hindered or protected prisoners from certain rights. Some include the Hudson v. Palmer case which held that prisoners were not protected against searches and seizures of their prison cells and Wolff v. McDonnell that stated that prisoners shall remain entitled to some of their constitutional rights even after being incarcerated.
The Free Black Women's Library is an organization that hosts a mobile library based primarily in New York City, and is focused on sharing literature written by Black women. It was founded by the Nigerian American Ola Ronke Akinmowo in Brooklyn in 2015.
Share Your Soles is a non-profit organization in Chicago, Illinois, that provides shoes for the homeless and individuals that cannot afford to purchase shoes. The organization supplies shoes to individuals in the United States, as well as third world countries such as Uganda, Mexico, Peru and Guatemala. Share Your Soles sets up various fundraisers and develops partnerships in order to gain funds for their organization.
Prison Book Program is an American non-profit organization that sends free books to people in prison. While the organization is based in Massachusetts, it mails packages of books to people in prisons in 45 U.S. states, as well as Puerto Rico and Guam. The program receives letters from people in prison asking for specific titles or genres, which volunteers use to put together a package of books chosen from a small library of donated books. The organization is run out of the basement of the United First Parish Church in Quincy, Massachusetts. Kelly Brotzman currently serves as Executive Director.
The Women's Prison Book Project (WPBP) is an all-volunteer nonprofit organization that provides free books to women, trans, and nonbinary people who are incarcerated in state and federal prisons across the United States. The organization is based in Minneapolis, MN.
