Books are stacked on a small fold-up table in the backroom of Boxcar Books, ready to get packed and shipped out. Judging by the titles -- "Harriet the Spy," "Eva Peron," "Microeconomics," "The Academy Awards Handbook" -- they look like they were ordered by students, housewives, and businessmen. Perhaps the people that receive them were those things at one time. Now they are known as inmate 1103571, inmate 3487011, and so on. Eva Peron had her hard-covers cut off -- they aren't allowed where she's going. A guard could be knocked cold by a hard heavy bio of Evita. At least, that's the idea. \nMidwestern Pages to Prisoners operates out of Boxcar Books, a small non-profit bookstore located on N. Washington St. across from the Bloomington Police Station. A bunch of college-age kids meet on Thursday nights and Sunday afternoons to fill requests sent through the mail by prisoners, mostly from the midwest. \nCorinna Manion is the head of Midwest Pages to Prisoners. She's been involved with it since she was 16. The project began in 1995, and has changed leadership and locations several times. \n"It was originally in a bookstore called Nervous Books, then it moved between several people's houses before it fizzled and was resurrected in 1999 by Sam Dorrsett and Secret Sailor Books," Manion said. \nIn 2002 it settled in Boxcar Books. \n"The reason for all these moves is primarily due to the fact that we must be located in a bookstore," Manion said. "For our books to be accepted by the prison mailrooms, they must come from a legitimate bookstore. This is why a project like Pages is so necessary, because prisoner's friends and families are in most cases unable to send them books."
Volunteering for a night\nOn May 12, there are about seven people volunteering, all in their 20s. Mid-eighties underground post-punk music is playing in the background and Manion is shelving books, trying to figure out how to classify things. About three people are sitting on a couch and wrapping packages tight with packing tape. In a smaller room, there are three flipping through boxes filled tight with note cards. Each note card has an inmate's name, Department of Corrections number, what books he or she has received and when. \nOne letter is from "Robert". It is written in beautiful handwriting with a humble and polite request. \n"Please send me a book on one or any of the following topics: Satanism, Witchcraft, the Caballah, Demonism, Black Magic, Wickedness, Spell Casting, and a Resource Guide." \nHe ends up with a copy of "The Encyclopedia of Mind Control."\nRiley Manion, Corinna's sister, is helping fill prisoner's requests. They're lined up in order and the ones in the front are all from January. Sometimes the inmates request specific books, sometimes they make more general requests. After a brief note is written to the prisoner detailing what is being sent, the books are bound with a rubber band and set on a table next to the three or four kids packaging the orders for mail. Sometimes they have what is requested and sometimes they have to be creative, trying to glean from the prisoner's stated preferences what they might be interested in. \nThe entire back area of Boxcar Books looks like storage space. Books take up every inch of the walls, all the way to the ceiling. \nCorinna Manion said donation was the main source of books.\n"The end of the school year (and) spring cleaning produce a lot of donations for us," she said in an e-mail. "Other ways we get books: people do book drives for us, we purchase highly requested titles through Boxcar (dictionaries, etc.), and we go to library book sales."\nAbbey Friedman, who helps Corrinna Manion run the operation, said both Boxcar Books and Pages to Prisoners get funding through donations and charity events. \n"The 3rd annual rock and roll prom was a fundraiser for Boxcar and Pages," Friedman said in an e-mail. "Profits were split in half between the two. We had a bowl-a-thon (where) participants got sponsors and then bowled, book drives, concerts, that kind of thing."
Ties with IU\nMegan Selby is the Advocate for Community Engagement for Pages to Prisoners, the liason between IU and Pages to Prisoners via the Community Outreach and Partnerships in Service-Learning. According to the group's mission, it "provides assistance connecting community engagement with course-based learning".\n"There are prisoner book programs all across the country, but not nearly enough to keep up with the demand." said Selby, while visiting a "prisoner book program" in Boston. \nAlternative Social Control Techniques in the Criminal Justice department is one of the classes that allow students to earn an extra credit by volunteering at Boxcar. \nCorinna Manion said there are usually more volunteers during the school year, as many as 15-20 each night. Some students have to volunteer to maintain scholarships and some fraternities and sororities send people in, she said.
Dealing with restrictive policy\nThere's a restrictions list detailing what each prison will accept and what each won't. According to Friedman, the list was composed over time through trial and error using information shared between different groups like Pages to Prisoners. For instance, under the entry for Indiana State Prison in Michigan City, it lists no hard covers and good condition only. \nCorinna Manion said she understood the nature of the rule: handwriting and underlined text could be a security risk possibly containing secret codes or other information.\n"This rule seems very arbitrary and is very problematic for us because all of our books are donated," she said. "One time we got a package returned with 'NO TAPE' written on it. They were telling us we couldn't tape the package." \nJames Hendrix, assistant superintendent at the Indiana Women's Prison in Indianapolis, said the rules are based in reason.\n"We, as a department, do not 'arbitrarily' restrict, censor, or otherwise prohibit offenders from receiving books and other printed materials," he said.\nHendrix said the nature and extent of restrictions on material getting into prisons changed after 9-11.\n"In the wake of Sept. 11, we must be aware of the use of the United States mail as a means of introducing deadly or, otherwise, unhealthy contaminants into our facilities," he said. "A parcel containing bubble wrap, pills, no return address label, a white powder, for example, can result in the delay of the item being forwarded on to the offender."\nHendrix also said the restriction on used books is largely a practical matter.\n"As far as only accepting books that are in good condition, well that depends," he said. "If the books are well used and all pages still intact, I'll take them. If they require rebinding, I can't use them as I have no way of rebinding books other than glue ... which won't help for long."\nCorinna Manion said Indiana is not as frustrating as other states with restrictions.\n"It's not terribly common," she said, referring to the prohibition against old books. "We tend to focus on Indiana, whose prisons are relatively lenient about what condition the materials come in."
Helping to rehabilitate\nThe people running Pages firmly believe in what they do. \n"My opinion of the U.S. prison system is that it is completely ineffective," Friedman said. "The idea of rehabilitating people is a good one, but that's not what's happening anymore. Without access to educational programs, proper counseling, and other resources, and by being kept in inhumane conditions, people in this prison system will never be rehabilitated."\nCorinna Manion said the group's work helps with the rehabilitation process. \n"The Midwest Pages to Prisoners Project strives to encourage self-education among prisoners in the United States," she said. "By providing free reading materials upon request, we hope to aid in the rehabilitation process and stimulate critical thinking behind bars. I believe that prisoners should not be estranged and stigmatized by society. This problematic notion of locking them up and throwing away the key produces a vengeful cycle and endless recidivism."\nWilliam Oliver is a professor of criminal justice at IU. He said the era in which "get tough" policies dominate the way correctional institutions are designed is coming to a close. \n"President Bush is leading the effort to encourage states to be more effective at facilitating prisoner reentry by funding programs in and outside of prison." Oliver said. "America believes in punishment and wants our prisons to be places of punishment. However, with 650,000 prisoners returning annually, we are beginning to understand that punishment per se is insufficient."
Giving Back\nSelby said it was not uncommon for prisoners to give something back, or even just drop by the bookstore to say hello. \n"I've met some people in person who have received books from us and they usually keep it pretty brief saying 'thanks a lot,'" she said. "A couple of times people have come into pages and volunteered their time, which was great to see that they felt it was such a great program that they wanted to be a part of it."\nFor Selby, that interaction underscores her disapproval of the prison system.\n"Any contact I've had with prisoners," she said, "just reinforces what I know about the prison system being horribly wrong and a waste of peoples' lives and taxpayers' money"
