The power of books behind bars

Reginald Dwayne Betts has loved books since he was a kid. In school, he got caught reading Sherlock Holmes in the back of class. At home, he watched speed-reading infomercials on repeat, determined to learn the trick—and eventually finding a how-to guide at his local library.

It would be the last book he checked out before going to prison.

Sixteen-year-old Reginald was sentenced to nine years behind bars for carjacking. Reading soon became his lifeline and biggest connection to the outside world, with Reginald turning to literature to keep his mind busy while in jail.

• And he quickly realized he wasn’t alone; fellow inmates had built an “underground library,” using torn bedsheets and a pulley system to pass books between their cells.

“We go to literature because we want to know ourselves better,” said Reginald, now 45. “Books offer a map to becoming.”

Reginald went on to become an award-winning poet following his release in 2005, while also earning a law degree from Yale and founding Freedom Reads, a nonprofit that installs handcrafted libraries inside prisons across the US.

Each “Freedom Library” holds 500 carefully chosen fiction and nonfiction titles, including Toni Morrison, James Baldwin, J.R.R. Tolkien, and Kurt Vonnegut. About 15% are in languages other than English.

• The number 500 is intentional: it’s how many books Sir Walter Raleigh used to write The History of the World while imprisoned.
• The message? You can lock up a body, but not a mind.

Above all else, the project’s guiding principle is joy. Freedom Reads also employs formerly incarcerated people to build the libraries, which are made of warm, solid wood and designed to invite conversation over literature.

To date, the nonprofit has installed 605 libraries across 60 prisons nationwide. Reginald says he receives letters from readers inside describing new perspectives, renewed hope, and, in one case, a mother who said her son finally sounded like himself again.