Reflections of a Wandering Lawyer

Last night I walked into a church basement in DC- the kind of grim decor-bare cinderblock basement sectioned off into rooms with used scratched wooden furnishings. There were metal bookshelves full of wall to wall paperbacks with a primative indexing and alphabetized system for finding categories and genres and titles. In a makeshift filing cabinet of stacked drawers were supplies like reams and reams of tape, rubber bands and scissors. I met the head of the operation; a middle aged woman in a wheel chair who thrust a small box that looked like a radio under my mouth when i introduced myself. 'Hi, I'm Cynthia" I said. "Can you please repeat that, and excuse my microphone, I am deaf and this magnifies what you say because I'm not that good at reading lips' "Hi, I'm Cynthia." She went on to explain the drill. We get letters from prisoners across the country requesting books. We read them, answer them with our stationary, telling them we either found their book or could suggest another of a similar genre and enclose as many as the prison allows. Some have a 2 book maximum. You have to check the specifications book for what prisons allow. Some require a receipt on our letterhead, i'll explain that later." She went on to detail how the books are wrapped. 'We cut the corner of the prisoner return address off and tape it to the box" I observed a guy fastidiously cutting brown paper Trader Joes grocery bags from a stack in the corner into wrapping squares flipped inside out. "We have to tape all the corners" explaining that the post office just tosses things in trucks and it is necessary therefore to plaster the box of books in tape. She stamps them 'Media Mail." She asks if any of my lawyer friends might like to donate postage. Its their only expense- everything else is donate she explains. In one night a few hundred packages went out across the country. One volunteer explained "I did two and a half years in Texas and I didn't ever get anything. My family was in Korea so i didn't get anything-that's why I do this." Just a little Angel Dust one evening in Washington, DC in a place you might not expect it. It's called Books to Prisons (google it)- anyone incarcerated can request a book and a staff of people half in yoga pants and work out gear will try to find it for them.

To send them stamps or books (paperbacks only) please find address HERE http://dcbookstoprisoners.org