[Peace] Fwd: this "Public Square" to be aired on WILL at 4:45 and 6:45 this Friday

[Barbara kessel]

My name is Barbara Kessel and I am a volunteer with *Books to Prisoners*, an
organization that collects donated books from the community and ships them
to individual inmates at the 28 state prisons for adults + five federal
penitentiaries in Illinois. We have always imagined that our efforts
supplemented the prison libraries However, we discovered recently that the
state budget crisis began to affect the prisons seven years ago, long before
it has hit us in schools and social services. In these seven years, the
prison libraries have not had any budget to purchase anything, - books,
newspapers, magazines or scotch tape. Many of them are shut down for lack of
a librarian.

We would like to call your attention as taxpayers to the fact that
recidivism for 2009 in the state of Illinois was 51%, that is, over half of
the prisoners released, return for another incarceration. Research has shown
that any kind of educational factor while in prison - such as access to
reading material - reduces recidivism by as much as one third. If the
recidivism were reduced by 1/3 in Illinois that could save us $17 million,
not to mention the human savings of making families whole again.

Our own efforts here in Champaign-Urbana make a modest but significant
difference to thousands of prisoners. You can be part of that by coming to
our book sale where we make the money to pay postage. The Book Sale, "Pages
for Pennies" is going on today, Friday from 4 to 8, tomorrow 8 to 5 and
Sunday 10 to 2 at the old Post Office in Urbana, Broadway and Elm.

However, it is impossible for us to replace the prison libraries. Thus, we
urge you to help us with your ideas for how to keep open access to books in
prison, to talk to your state legislator, or to join us in a campaign of
working with the Illinois Department of Corrections to maintain the
prisoners' right to read, so they can take the smart way out and never
return.

www.books2prisoners.org, website of Books to Prisoners.

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