National non-profit Freedom Reads opens 22 Freedom Libraries across cellblocks in Decatur and Illinois River Correctional Centers; facilitates Inside Literary Prize book discussions, voting, and author events at Decatur and Western Correctional Centers
The national non-profit Freedom Reads announced today the opening of 22 new Freedom Libraries in two Illinois prisons – six Freedom Libraries in cellblocks across Decatur Correctional Center, a women’s prison, and 16 in cellblocks across Illinois River Correctional Center, a men’s prison. As of today, Freedom Reads has opened 441 Freedom Libraries in 46 adult and youth prisons in 12 states.
The Freedom Reads team also facilitated Inside Literary Prize book discussions, voting, and author readings for the second annual Inside Literary Prize at Decatur Correctional Center and Western Correctional Center. Launched in 2023 by Freedom Reads, the National Book Foundation, and the Center for Justice Innovation with support from Lori Feathers, the Inside Literary Prize is the first-ever US-based literary prize awarded exclusively by currently incarcerated people. 25 incarcerated readers at both Decatur and Western Correctional Centers are serving as judges for the 2025 Prize, casting their ballots this week for one of this year’s four shortlisted books – Chain-Gang All-Stars by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah, This Other Eden by Paul Harding, On a Woman’s Madness by Astrid Roemer, and Blackouts by Justin Torres. The winner of the 2025 Prize will be announced this July.
As part of the Inside Literary Prize events, poet Roger Bonair-Agard joined Freedom Reads inside Decatur and Western Correctional Centers to give a poetry reading and book signing. The Freedom Reads team will be visiting prisons across five more states and territories this spring to bring the Inside Literary Prize to all 300 incarcerated judges.
“Freedom Reads has always been about showing up for those Inside,” said Freedom Reads Founder & CEO Reginald Dwayne Betts. “We are showing up this week in Illinois, bringing handcrafted Freedom Libraries full of great literature and the Inside Literary Prize to hundreds of folks inside prisons. The Freedom Library and Inside Literary Prize are about more than just access to books, they are about starting conversations and community around literature, and reminding those Inside that they have not been forgotten. We are grateful to the Illinois Department of Corrections for their partnership in both of these important endeavors.”
“Books are windows to worlds other than our own that allow us to dream beyond current circumstances, and access to them can be a lifeline for incarcerated individuals as an invitation to think, grow, and imagine new possibilities,” said Illinois Department of Corrections Director Latoya Hughes. “By bringing Freedom Libraries and the Inside Literary Prize into more facilities, we’re expanding opportunities for the individuals in our care to engage with the transformative power of language. We’re proud to partner with Freedom Reads to support programs that foster reflection, learning, and critical thinking skills.”
“It is with renewed vigor that I begin to read the four books which I have received,” Inside Literary Prize judge Sandra at Decatur Correctional Center wrote to Freedom Reads. “I am a 79-year-old retired Elementary teacher with a Masters in Reading and Writing Literacy. My mantra is: ‘If you can read, you can do ANYTHING!!!’ Looking forward to reading and enjoying the books!”
Freedom Reads is a first-of-its-kind organization that empowers people in prison through literature to imagine new possibilities for their lives. The Freedom Libraries are the brainchild of 2021 MacArthur Fellow and Yale Law School graduate Reginald Dwayne Betts, who was sentenced in Virginia to nine years in prison at age 16. Freedom Libraries are spaces in prisons to encourage community and in which reaching for a book can be as spontaneous as human curiosity. Each bookcase is handcrafted out of maple, cherry, oak, or walnut and is curved to contrast the straight lines and bars of prisons as well as to evoke Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s observation about the “arc of the moral universe” bending “toward justice.”
Books in the Freedom Library have been carefully curated through consultations with hundreds of poets, novelists, philosophers, teachers, friends, and voracious readers, resulting in a collection of books that are not only beloved, but indispensable. The libraries include contemporary poetry, novels, and essays alongside classic works such as Homer’s The Odyssey and Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man – titles that remind us that books have long been a freedom project.
About the Inside Literary Prize
In 2023, Freedom Reads, the National Book Foundation, and the Center for Justice Innovation, with support from literary podcaster Lori Feathers, announced the launch of the Inside Literary Prize, the first-ever US-based literary prize awarded exclusively by currently incarcerated people. The Prize is awarded each year to one of four shortlisted books by a jury of 300 incarcerated readers from prisons across the nation. This initiative seeks to honor the insights incarcerated readers add to cultural conversations and expand access to our country’s most thought-provoking literature for people who are incarcerated.