National non-profit Freedom Reads opens 20 Freedom Libraries across Ohio Reformatory for Women and Southeastern Correctional Institution; facilitates Inside Literary Prize book discussions, voting, and author events at both prisons
The national non-profit Freedom Reads announced today the opening of 20 new Freedom Libraries in two Ohio prisons – 13 Freedom Libraries across housing units at the Ohio Reformatory for Women (ORW) in Marysville, Ohio, and 7 Freedom Libraries across housing units at Southeastern Correctional Institution (SCI) in Lancaster, Ohio. As of today, Freedom Reads has opened 498 Freedom Libraries in 50 adult and youth prisons in 13 states.
The Freedom Reads team also facilitated Inside Literary Prize book discussions, voting, and author readings for the second annual Inside Literary Prize at ORW and SCI. Launched in 2023 by Freedom Reads, independent bookstore owner Lori Feathers, the National Book Foundation, and the Center for Justice Innovation, the Inside Literary Prize is the first-ever US-based literary prize awarded exclusively by currently incarcerated people. Twenty-five incarcerated readers at each of ORW and SCI 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, author Caits Meissner, editor of The Sentences That Create Us, joined Freedom Reads inside at both prisons for a book reading, Q&A, and book signing with an audience inside the prison. Ohio is the last stop for the 2025 Inside Literary Prize, rounding out a tour that included stops in 15 prisons across California, Connecticut, Illinois, New Jersey, Ohio, and Puerto Rico.
“Bringing Freedom Libraries full of great literature–and the Inside Literary Prize–into prisons is a declaration that people Inside matter,” said Freedom Reads Founder & CEO Reginald Dwayne Betts. “We’re proud to open 20 new, handcrafted Freedom Libraries across cellblocks in ORW and SCI, and to conclude the 2025 Inside Literary Prize in Ohio. This year’s tour has been remarkable and made possible by the dedication of our Freedom Reads team and the voices of our judges inside prisons across the nation. We are grateful to the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction for their partnership in both of these efforts. Freedom begins with a book.”
"Books are powerful in the sense that they provide a mental furlough from the daily stressors of incarcerated lives," said Ohio Reformatory for Women (ORW) Warden Erin Maldonado. "The installation of Freedom Libraries within our housing units is an opportunity for fostering unique dialogue, connections, purpose, and hope within the healing community and culture of ORW."
"Southeastern Correctional Institution (SCI) was thrilled to be selected as one of the first two prisons in Ohio to receive Freedom Reads libraries in each of our incarcerated persons (IP) housing units," said Southeastern Correctional Institution (SCI) Warden Norm Robinson. "Their donations of beautiful hand-crafted bookcases and 500 new books in each unit were received with great excitement from the IPs and staff. Equally impressive was the Inside Literary Prize judging and author event and Q&A with Caits Meissner, editor of The Sentences That Create Us: Crafting a Writer’s Life in Prison."
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, independent bookstore owner Lori Feathers, the National Book Foundation, and the Center for Justice Innovation, 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.