10,888 days and counting. That’s not the number of books in PBP’s inventory; it’s the number of days I’ve been warehoused in prison (as of 7/28/04). The most difficult, even painful part of the prison experience is not so much the physical violence, the 8+ years of segregation, being rejected by loved ones, nor the struggle with dependency issues and person demons. No, the real struggle is for growth.

In prison you don’t truly grow as a human being; you just sort of grow old. People grow (hopefully) through experiencing the world around them, even if it’s simply their community. In the prison world, we fear what we can grow into. For many prisoners, the path to their social, political, spiritual and educational growth and development can be tracked by following the “footprints” of the worn volumes of books they’ve read and in some instances fought to possess.

I recall being 21, sitting in solitary with nothing but a pair of underwear, a roll of toilet paper and a contraband copy of “A Time to Die.” That book and those seven months forever changed my life and my relationship with imprisonment. It also helped me understand why books are an anathema to the prison warden.

In the prison library, I can find the Bible and Koran, often in several languages, but not Lao Tzu or the Bhagavad-Gita in any language. I can find the works of Stephen King but not Dr. Martin Luther King; Irving Wallace but not Bonnie Kerness. I can find Max Brand and Louis LaMoure but not de Tocqueville, Dead Man Walking nor Live from Death Row. I'm able to find the wonderfully imaginative odyssey of Arthur C. Clarke but not the works of Stuart Grassian on the effects of solitary confinement and sensory deprivation which was extremely important I'm my struggle against prison officials’ attempt to exile me into the federal prison system (Marion, Super Max) some years ago.

This is not meant as an indictment against the books I can (and have) read from the prison library. It does say something by the “but not” list. This is where the Prison Book Program comes in. PBP fills the void created by prisons’ “but not” books. If we are not able to feed our intellect; to touch, through books social and political issues we can not hope to grow but stunted. PBP provides the intellectual and spiritual nutrients for a healthy and balanced growth.

Ray Champagne, Shirley, MA