There are about 1.8 million people in the U.S. in correctional facilities, including state and federal prisons, local jails, juvenile detention centers and immigration detention facilities, according to the Prison Policy Initiative.
That’s why Freedom Reads has made it a mission to put hand-crafted bookcases called Freedom Libraries into the hands of inmates across the country. The national organization installed the first of its county-level facilities at the Camden County Juvenile Detention Center on Sept. 15.
Tyler Sperrazza is the chief production officer for Freedom Reads.
“Our entire mission is about bringing dignity to those who are incarcerated,” he explained, “and reminding them that the walls between the inside and the outside can be more porous, and books are the way to do that right.”
The county detention center got one Freedom Library for its female housing unit and another for the male unit. The facility currently houses four female and 28 male residents between the ages of 13 and 21.
Elizabeth Cheer is the site education supervisor for the center. She first approached the Freedom Reads team at a conference of individuals who work on prison re-entry.
“This is the proudest moment of my career, bringing these libraries,” she said.
Reginald Dwayne Betts, founder and CEO of Freedom Reads, was passed a copy of “The Black Poets” while incarcerated as a teen. The experience inspired him to move forward with his life by writing his own poetry. Betts got published before his release from prison and later became a lawyer.
Betts was then inspired to create Freedom Reads, with the goal of putting a Freedom Library in every correctional facility housing unit in the nation. So far, the organization has created 515 libraries in 51 adult and youth prisons, and stocked them with more than 278,500 books.
Several members of the Freedom Reads team, many former prisoners themselves, were on hand for the Camden County presentation. Library coordination manager David Perez DeHoyos explained the emotional impact that being incarcerated can have on an individual.
“It’s disorienting,” he noted. “It’s kind of, in a way, traumatizing, like the shell shock of being out, free in the community, then suddenly behind bars. So there’s … an isolation to it.”
Some of those present for the county unveiling designed and built the detention center bookcases, which are carefully created to be welcoming while allowing for conversation and book sharing.
“Imagine some of the stuff that these kids have been through, and then all of a sudden, they can read a book, and they can be in a different place, in a mindset …,” County Commissioner Jonathan Young observed. “We’re just hoping that this is something that may be a calming agent for them.
“This is something that maybe really starts to turn their life around.”
That the books are new paperback copies is an important aspect of Freedom Reads.
“We want to make sure that we’re showing folks on the inside that they are valued in a way, that they deserve new books, and they deserve to be the first person that’s opened that book and read that book,” Sperrazza pointed out. “We … want them to be able to have that experience.”
The library bookcases are filled with titles carefully selected to best serve the needs of the center’s juvenile residents. They include young adult books of several different genres: science fiction, poetry, non-fiction and literary classics.
“I really just want them to have their horizons open and to learn about things that maybe they didn’t even know existed before hand,” Cheer emphasized, “and just also to understand that people care about them enough to have brought these books, these libraries and this knowledge to them.”
One of the female juveniles at the center – identified only as JB – was offered recommendations from a member of Freedom Rides based on books she enjoyed.
During an an assembly-style presentation for inmates at the center, each of the formerly incarcerated members of the Freedom Reads team stepped up to the podium to share how books changed their lives.
Kevin Baker, another library production manager for the organization, shared a story about one library that was met with hostility and aggression by inmates – until the books appeared.
“I watched grown men go from violence to compassion and gratitude in 21 minutes,” he recalled, “because of these books.”
