Challenging mass incarceration through books, education, and community engagement.
Our work emanates from two interconnected premises: education is a basic human right, and engaging the community in educational justice efforts is a requisite component to building sustainable restorative justice models.
Since 2005, we have mailed over 30,000 books.
100 imprisoned people (75 women, 25 men) and 27 volunteers have participated in our book clubs.
Over 300 people have volunteered.
We’ve hosted 16+ wrapping parties for community volunteer groups.
But don’t just take it from us. Hear what our friends on the inside have to say about our work.
In response to the coronavirus pandemic, the Appalachian Prison Book Project is temporarily closing its doors.
On January 23, 2020, Dwayne Betts announced that his memoir A Question of Freedom, which chronicles Betts’s time as a young man in prison and how reading saved his life, was officially banned from Virginia state prisons.
My first day as a teaching assistant for an Inside-Out class was the first day I walked inside a prison. I had no idea what to expect and did not know what questions to ask. When we arrived at the…
I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart for your generosity. You have indeed put some sunshine in my rather drab life imprisoned as I am here on Death Row.
Thank you for providing books directly to prisoners free of charge. Yours is a great service, especially for those whose library’s collection is meager, outdated, or otherwise inadequate and who simply do not have the funds to buy books out of their own pockets.
Because of your book program sending me Michie’s West Virginia Code Annotated, I was able to litigate an amended sentence order from life without parole to eligibility for parole after serving 15 years. In other words, you helped save my life. Thank you.
