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Sharing Books with My Dad in Prison

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Re: Sharing Books with My Dad in Prison

#3
inmates are unable to receive used books in San Diego county jails. the books must be sent new directly from the book store. this greatly increases the cost of some books. also, due to state-local policies, some inmates do up to 6 years in county jail. county is quite a bit worse than prison in California....there's way less to do.

Re: Sharing Books with My Dad in Prison

#6
post #3

inmates are unable to receive used books in San Diego county jails. the books must be sent new directly from the book store. this greatly increases the cost of some books. also, due to state-local policies, some inmates do up to 6 years in county jail. county is quite a bit worse than prison in California....there's way less to do.

What's the difference between a jail and a prison? They're the same thing in my country.

Re: Sharing Books with My Dad in Prison

#7
post #3

inmates are unable to receive used books in San Diego county jails. the books must be sent new directly from the book store. this greatly increases the cost of some books. also, due to state-local policies, some inmates do up to 6 years in county jail. county is quite a bit worse than prison in California....there's way less to do.

What's the difference between a jail and a prison? They're the same thing in my country.

Jails are run by the local municipal or regional governments and generally speaking only house inmates for sentences of less than a year. San Diego appears to be an outlier with that 6+ year figure.

A prison is run by the state and is geared towards those with much longer sentences.

Re: Sharing Books with My Dad in Prison

#8
post #3

inmates are unable to receive used books in San Diego county jails. the books must be sent new directly from the book store. this greatly increases the cost of some books. also, due to state-local policies, some inmates do up to 6 years in county jail. county is quite a bit worse than prison in California....there's way less to do.

What's the difference between a jail and a prison? They're the same thing in my country.

Generally jail is where you are held before a trial, or for short terms for minor crimes, prison is for serving your sentence after your conviction. This varies by locality.

Re: Sharing Books with My Dad in Prison

#9
post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's the difference between a jail and a prison? They're the same thing in my country.

Jails are run by the local municipal or regional governments and generally speaking only house inmates for sentences of less than a year. San Diego appears to be an outlier with that 6+ year figure. A prison is run by the state and is geared towards those with much longer sentences.

California’s horribly overcrowded prisons were found to be unconstitutional (cruel & unusual punishment), so they were under a court order to fix it. The “solution” was to transfer lots of prisoners to county jails.

Re: Sharing Books with My Dad in Prison

#10
Volunteered for Books for Prisoners in Portland for a time.

Prisoners would write asking for subjects, not by title since that was super unlikely. Often we would mail a mix of magazines and books.

Every jail has different rules. Each package would get custom consideration for which jail it was going to.

Sometimes stuff would just get confiscated for no reason.

Some of the letters were sad to read. The appreciation and expression of thanks for some random book previously sent.

The date it was read by a volunteer and responded to would be sometimes several months from the date it was written.

It did spur my interest in criminal justice system to some extent. But mostly I took away how sad the conditions were on the inside. As I took for granted my ability to choose and read whatever I liked, whenever I liked.

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