PLP was pleased to host a group from the University of Utah again this week, as part of the Alternative Breaks program of the Bennion Center. On Alternative Breaks, teams of students, along with faculty/staff partners, work alongside communities throughout the western United States on a variety of community-identified projects to address a variety of social and environmental justice topics. […]
Thank you so much to Tor Books (and its various labels) for donating so many wonderful sci-fi, fantasy, romantasy and other genre fiction to PLP. (We can’t wait to send it all to incarcerated folks looking for great new reads!)
A reporter at local Bay Area news site Berkeleyside ended up interviewing multiple volunteers and attending sessions, and the result was this great write-up on our books to prisoners program.
Please consider purchasing a book off these bookstore partner wishlists so that PLP can reach the max matching grant amount! If you’re in the Bay Area, books purchased at the local bookstores listed below with PLP displays will also be matched by the grant. Stop by and check them out. Bookstores are the best! Pegasus on Solano in BerkeleyPegasus on […]
We’re happy to share some of the recent thank you letters PLP has received from book recipients. Many of them are now posted around our library for volunteers to browse. It’s a pleasure to know books are “saving lives” behind bars.
It’s always fun to see which books on our shelves match up with requests from readers.
To end the year, here are some highlights from PLP’s busy 2025:
— PLP established an Anti-Censorship team (ACT) to start pushing back on tightening restrictions from prisons about the books we send. Our first effort is to target jails in California (some nearby and in the Bay Area) that won’t even allow us to send NEW, high quality books to incarcerated readers.
–Sent over 15,000 packages to incarcerated people, amounting to over 45,000 books!
–Held over 260 book packing sessions (3 hours each), including some with local high school students. That’s over 6,000 volunteers hours responding to letters alone!
— And more…
In fall of 2025 a small team of volunteers initiated a review of 1,350 letters requesting free books that volunteers processed in Sept. 2025. We’re excited to share some of the results of the data collection project below. The complete slideshow can be seen here.
Prisoners Literature Project is an inclusive, all-volunteer, grassroots nonprofit whose purpose is to encourage reading, the pursuit of knowledge, and self-determination among incarcerated people. By sending free reading materials to those behind bars, PLP aims to foster learning and critical thinking and help prepare people to lead successful lives after incarceration. We believe that all people have a right to read.
Please consider donating to PLP or volunteering your time (if you live in the Bay Area, CA!) to help us answer letters from prisoners who write us from all over the United States.
