[Bookstoprisoners] Jail "statistics" to date

Susan Porter Bruce susanpbruce at yahoo.com
Mon Feb 20 13:34:07 CST 2006


Jail Librarians and others interested in Books-to-Prisoners:

As you may know, the jail check-out cards were sorted last week, with  
the cards of those who have been released or sent to prison put in  
the back of the box. (Librarians did this using a print-out that a  
helpful guard brought in.)

I decided to take these home Friday so I could count up whatever was  
easily countable.

I estimate we've been going to the jail for 20 weeks, and during that  
time we created about 220-240 cards which are now retired. (I know  
there were more than I have, because we had quite a few smaller cards  
before we switched to the larger ones.) We probably have another 100  
currently in the box, i.e. people still at the jail and using the  
library.

Of the 220 I have, 52 were women (23%.) That seems higher than I  
might have thought, but there may be more turnover for women.

Some cards show only 1-2 books checked out, some have as many as 40.  
(We all know several who are on their second cards and who check out  
6 books each week.) Of course, it depends on the length of their  
stay, and how often they choose to come to the library.

I'll hang onto these, as we may want to sometime take the trouble to  
list the books checked out. If anyone wants to see these or do  
anything with them, let me know.

In sum, we've served something like 350 or 400 people.

Jay, perhaps we might share this with Nancy?

Susan Bruce



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