Durham group sends free books to prison inmates even during pandemic

Leigh Lassiter Prison Books Collective

Samah Majadla, a Prison Books Collective volunteer, reads a letter from an incarcerated person requesting

a book.

The rise of the coronavirus pandemic shrunk everyone’s world. For people quarantined and locked in cells inside prisons, a favorite reprieve was escaping into a book.

“It truly gives us an outlet to mentally escape our current physical condition,” one man wrote in a May 2020 letter to the Prison Books Collective, a local nonprofit that sends free books to incarcerated men across North Carolina.

The pandemic hindered access to books inside jails and prisons. But the volunteer-run collective, based in Durham, is ramping back up its outreach.

During the summer of 2020, many prison libraries shut down or had limited access. One man, in a letter to PBC in July of last year, wrote that his facilities’ library closed after the librarian died of COVID-19.

Another wrote that in a prison confining more than 560 people, only three at a time were allowed inside the library during the few hours it was open.

One of many groups organized to get books to people in prison, PBC sends paperbacks directly to incarcerated people, rather than donating to prison libraries.

One reason is that access to prison libraries can be unpredictable, said Leigh Lassiter, a volunteer since 2018. On top of that, library stock can be limited and the privilege of visiting can be revoked, she added.

Roots in activism

The local group was founded in 2006 as an offshoot of the now defunct Internationalist Books and Community Center, a Carborro-based nonprofit group that sold left-leaning literature and was a gathering place for local activists, Lassiter said.

To receive Prison Books Collective titles, incarcerated people in this state and Alabama write with requests. On Sundays, volunteers gather in the group’s Durham workspace, a one-room apartment owned by the Human Kindness Foundation. There, they open letters, locate books among their donated holdings, and package books for mailing.

Many incarcerated people ask for fiction such as thrillers, westerns and mysteries, said Samah Majadla, a volunteer at PBC, who joined in Dec. 2019. They also ask for legal texts, educational textbooks, and how-to guides for starting a business. The most frequent request is a dictionary, said Lassiter.

Until the pandemic rose, PBC sent about 45 packages of books a week. But in the spring of 2020, that number dropped to 26. The group had shut down its in-person meeting space for two months.

That paused their practice of inviting anyone to pack books on Sundays. That meant local college groups, such as the UNC Criminal Justice Awareness and Action Group, could not come to help.

Getting books

to prisoners

Despite the difficulties, the group was determined to find a way to keep packing books, Lassiter said. People inside of prisons were requesting books more than ever to replace closed library services and keep their minds busy during quarantine. So volunteers worked out of their homes to fill orders.

“We knew it was even more important at this time,” Lassiter said.

Working to make up for lost time, the group was dispatching about 32 packages per week in August. This month, members hope to hold a “packathon.” At one staged in December, volunteers packed books for eight hours straight.

Due to pandemic concerns, packing sprints will be limited to core members of the 10-person team, Lassiter said. But PBC members intend to reinstate their open-door policy when it’s safe, she added.

Still, there are ways people can help from home, Lassiter said. The group has started a patron program, where people can contribute books that have been requested but are not in PBC’s donated collection.

That program has helped the group fill requests for books on narcotics recovery, learning Hebrew, Egyptology and other topics. People can also donate office supplies and money.

The past months brought some positive shifts too. PBC has seen a rise in book and money donations during the pandemic, as well as in volunteers asking to help. That may be because the isolation many people felt during the pandemic made them more aware of the experiences of people in prisons, Majadla said.

The collective is one way people on the outside can help those inside, said Lassiter.

“Everyone should be able to exercise their mind in a way that a book lets you,” she said.