Life after Lockup- A Librarian at Every Table. No. 252.

Each year, nearly 650,000 people are released from US prisons, and over 7 million are released from jails; the vast majority will be rearrested within 3 years.
The January/February 2005 issue of Shelterforce covers Life after Lockup and Housing Ex-Offenders.
The new Re-Entry Council report offers hundreds of consensus-based, bipartisan recommendations for reducing public spending and increasing public safety by promoting the safe and successful return of these individuals to the community.

"While we may not be able to change the prison-industrial complex that has grown so much over the last decades we can, as working librarians, take first steps. We can seek to ensure that people held in local jails have library service. There are some public libraries and projects that provide guidance in this path. If we help one even one person, we help all." --from "Public Libraries and People in Jail" Reference and User Services Quarterly 44 (Fall 2004): 26-30.