Thanks to Medium – and the Ripple Network – for the wonderful piece they’ve written on the Prisoners Literature Project – ‘Booked Behind Bars‘.

The longform piece written by Nina Foushee starts out:

“I’m walking out of the Berkeley Prison Literature Project (PLP) one evening when someone says to me, “I started doing this because my nephew was in prison. I think he would have committed suicide if he hadn’t had books.” I started volunteering with the Prison Literature Project because my mother is a librarian. She is the origin of my belief that books can save a person’s life.”

As Nina notes later in her well-crafted story: “Perhaps the most salient issue that comes through in book requests is that people are using books as opportunities for the rehabilitation that they’ve been denied in prison. To this end, books serve as companions, as sources of psychological care, as ways to learn vocational skills, and, in the case of the parent who requested children’s literature, a way for incarcerated people to continue contributing to their families and communities.”

You can read the entire story over at Medium, and if you enjoyed it, we’d love it if you would consider donating or volunteering with the PLP.