Resources

Other Books-to-Prison Programs:

  • Click here for a comprehensive list of programs and states they serve

Guides for Formerly and Currently Incarcerated Individuals:

  • Connections 2023: A resource guide published by the New York Public Library for formerly incarcerated people coming home to New York City
  • Prison Activist Resource Center’s Resource Guide: A database/PDF list of advocacy organizations, community organizations, prison literature and arts projects, family and visiting resources, health care and legal resources, parole and pre-release resources, and prison abolition groups
  • We the People Legal Primer: A popular basic legal resource for people in prison published by the Prison Book Program in Quincy, MA
  • Jailhouse Lawyer’s Handbook: Published by the Center for Constitutional Rights and the National Lawyers Guild, explains explains how an incarcerated person can start a lawsuit in federal court and how to fight against mistreatment and bad conditions in prison
  • Prison Legal News books and subscriptions page: Contains many publications to order that would be of great interest to people in prison as well as workers in the legal or prison advocacy field; includes digital access to Prison Legal News magazine
  • Prison Law Office: Legal resource guide mainly for CA prisoners, focusing on constitutional rights behind bars

Just a Few Resources to Learn More About Prisons:

  • Prison Radio: Commentaries from political prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal and other incarcerated people.

  • Beyond Prisons: A podcast on prison abolition that elevates the voices of people directly impacted by the system. Launched in 2017 by Kim Wilson and Brian Sonenstein, it serves as an educational and political resource for those new to abolition and those long engaged in movement work.
  • The Marshall Project: A journalism organization covering in-depth stories about and from the perspectives of the lives affected by the U.S. criminal justice system.
  • The Sentencing Project: Has worked for a fair and effective U.S. criminal justice system for 30 years by promoting reforms in sentencing policy, addressing unjust racial disparities and practices, and advocating for alternatives to incarceration.
  • Prison Policy Initiative: A clearinghouse of research on mass incarceration, PPI documents the impacts of mass incarceration on individuals, communities, and our national welfare to empower the public to improve criminal justice policy.

Book Banning Policies:

  • How to Report on Banned Books in Prisons in Your State: “The Marshall Project spent over a year reporting on banned books in prisons, from a nationwide searchable table of banned book lists to Ohio’s confusing book screening process. Use this reporting recipe to investigate the issue of banned books in prisons, whether you are a journalist or a curious citizen.” – From The Marshall Project

  • The Books Banned in Your State’s Prisons: “Over the past year, reporters for The Marshall Project asked every state prison system for book policies and lists of banned publications. About half of the states said they kept such lists, which contained more than 50,000 titles. We’ve created a searchable database so you can see for yourself which books prisons don’t want incarcerated people to read.” – From The Marshall Project