© 2024 NPR Illinois
The Capital's Community & News Service
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

Department of Corrections Director Blames Illinois Lawmakers For Lack Of Spending On Prison Books

Travis Stansel/Illinois Public Media
Illinois Newsroom hosted a News & Brews event to discuss the lack of spending on books in Illinois prisons with volunteers and formerly incarcerated people on July 24, 2018.

Last spring, Illinois Newsroom reported that the Illinois Department of Corrections spent less than $300 on books for all of its prisons the prior year. In a recent interview, IDOC Director John Baldwin said state lawmakers dictate how the agency spends its money.

Data Source: Illinois Department of Corrections

Data obtained via an open records request shows the department used to spend roughly three quarters of a million dollars per year on books in the early 2000s.

Research also shows that more education in prisons can reduce recidivism rates, and potentially save taxpayer money on re-incarceration costs.

When asked why the department cut spending on reading material, Baldwin placed the blame squarely at the feet of state lawmakers.

“The legislature makes choices in where the money goes,” he said.

 Baldwin added, however, that the department has been “really good at increasing the number of actual books in our libraries because a variety of volunteer groups contribute hundreds and hundreds of books to institutions every single year.”

 

He described the prisons system’s library collections as “pretty robust.”

 

Illinois Newsroom spoke with a former prison librarian for the story published last year who confirmed she had no budget to buy books for the prison’s general library while she worked at Robinson Correctional Center in southeastern Illinois. She said she relied on volunteer groups to stock the library’s shelves.

 

Several volunteer groups in Illinois that donate books both to inmates and to prison library collections said they do this work because, if they didn’t, there may be no books for incarcerated people to read.

 

Read Illinois Newsroom’s original report here.

 

Follow Lee Gaines on Twitter:@LeeVGaines.

Lee V. Gaines is an award-winning journalist whose work has appeared in the Chicago Tribune, Chicago Reader, Chicago Magazine, Crain’s, the Pacific Standard and the Marshall Project. She also recently completed a fellowship with Chicago non-profit journalism lab, City Bureau.