Joan Deacon, senior librarian at the Montgomery County Correctional Facility, has worked in libraries since 1972 — leaving the public library system for the prison library system in 1994. Last year, the American Jail Association named her the national Civilian Employee of the Year and Montgomery County named her a “Woman of Distinction” for her work encouraging inmates to read.
What prompted you to make the jump from working in public libraries to the prison system?
I saw it as a chance to continue doing what I really like to do but to shake it up a bit — I think when you do that, you learn.
How many books are in Montgomery’s prison library?
There are probably around 20,000 to 25,000 books right now. We have a large collection of legal research materials so people have access to that when working on their cases. We have self-help books, materials about domestic abuse and money problems — we try to show people that you can look things up to help yourself.
Which books are most popular?
They read the same thing as anybody pretty much. Because of the environment, I don’t have books on martial arts for instance and they can’t access the Internet. Other than that, though, you would see a fairly representative collection — fiction, nonfiction, Spanish language. People here read poetry… and we get a lot of requests for Harry Potter.
Why are prison libraries important?
I think a library in a jail is the best place to have it. They, the inmates, really need it, they can’t get to it, so it sort of has to come to them. From a correctional viewpoint, the more inmates are occupied in positive ways, the less tension there is in the facility. When people are released , we hope their exposure to libraries helps them to pick up their lives a little bit better.
