Prison Stats

In 2024, we gave 20,385 books to 122 prisons.

 

  • Around 1500 prisoners contacted us directly, including around 10% of prisoners at HMP Thameside thanks to support from their librarian, and around 5% of all prisoners at HMP Stafford

  • We made over 50 larger donations, including 25 visits to the BookSpace by prison staff from as far away as Manchester, Wigan and Derby to collect books

  • We reached an estimate of well over 4000 inmates directly and indirectly

 

Not included in these figures are books we send to families of people in prison via various projects such as Out There and NEPACS

 

Projects inside prisons that we are supporting with our books:

Mental health coffee shop

Music school

Substance-free living

Wing libraries - including for vulnerable prisoners

Book groups

Warehouse training course

Multilingual library room

Bedtime reading

World Book Day

Peer mentoring (mental health, ESL, reading support)

Wing quizzes, including older prisoners

First Nighters

Basic literacy/phonics

Peer maths teaching