Books Through Bars is an American organization that works to provide quality reading material to prisoners in
Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania (; ( Pennsylvania Dutch: )), officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a state spanning the Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes regions of the United States. It borders Delaware to its southeast, ...
and surrounding states.
New Society Publishers
Douglas and McIntyre (2013) Ltd. is a Canadian book publishing firm.
Douglas & McIntyre was founded by James Douglas and Scott McIntyre in 1971 as an independent publishing company based in Vancouver. Reorganized with new owners in 2008 as D&M P ...
of
Philadelphia
Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania#Municipalities, largest city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the List of United States cities by population, sixth-largest city i ...
founded Books Through Bars in 1990.
[History]
. ''Books Through Bars''. Retrieved December 15, 2017. Books Through Bars was separately incorporated as a nonprofit organization on March 19, 2001.
Books Through Bars: Entity Number 2994731
. ''Business Entity Details''. Pennsylvania Department of State. Retrieved December 15, 2017. There are approximately 30 similar, but unaffiliated, organizations throughout the United States.
Because prisoners in American prison
A prison, also known as a jail, gaol (dated, standard English, Australian, and historically in Canada), penitentiary (American English and Canadian English), detention center (or detention centre outside the US), correction center, corre ...
s are not able to receive books from sources other than recognized publishers, bookstores, or other legitimate distributors, those without the financial resources to buy books have very limited access to them. Prison libraries are not being funded, in part because reading material is widely seen as irrelevant to a "mostly uneducated and indeed largely illiterate prison population".halfway house
A halfway house is an institute for people with criminal backgrounds or substance use disorder problems to learn (or relearn) the necessary skills to re-integrate into society and better support and care for themselves.
As well as serving as a ...
s.human rights
Human rights are moral principles or normsJames Nickel, with assistance from Thomas Pogge, M.B.E. Smith, and Leif Wenar, 13 December 2013, Stanford Encyclopedia of PhilosophyHuman Rights Retrieved 14 August 2014 for certain standards of hu ...
, the war on drugs
The war on drugs is a global campaign, led by the United States federal government, of drug prohibition, military aid, and military intervention, with the aim of reducing the illegal drug trade in the United States.Cockburn and St. Clair, 1 ...
, and prison reform
Prison reform is the attempt to improve conditions inside prisons, improve the effectiveness of a penal system, or implement alternatives to incarceration. It also focuses on ensuring the reinstatement of those whose lives are impacted by crimes ...
.
Books Through Bars is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization,[Books Through Bars]
. ''Exempt Organizations Select Check''. Internal Revenue Service. Retrieved December 15, 2017. formally organized as a collective and run by nine core members plus about twenty volunteers, and it is supported by grants from charitable organizations.[
]
References
External links
*
*
Building Blocks
. ''Philadelphia City Paper''. January 18, 1996. Archived fro
the original
on April 14, 2005.
New Society Publishers
{{Authority control
Book promotion
Charities based in Pennsylvania
Organizations established in 1990
Prison charities based in the United States