Prison Library Project

The Prison Library Project (PLP) provides free reading materials to inmates nationwide with the goal of promoting literacy, personal responsibility, reflection, and growth. 

The organization prioritizes educational and self-help literature while it also recognizes the value of literacy development through active engagement with books in general.

The PLP offers services to a wide range of communities within the prison system: librarians, chaplains, drug/alcohol recovery groups, domestic abuse and HIV/AIDS support groups, among others. 

It receives more than 14,500 letters annually from inmates in federal prisons and detention centers throughout the United States. In response, the PLP mails over 16,300 packages of books each year to individual inmates and also sends boxes of books to prison librarians, educators and chaplains. 

The PLP is an initiative of the Claremont Forum, a nonprofit community organization, which also organizes the Claremont Farmers and Artisans weekly market and supports local artists through its exhibition program. In addition, the Claremont Forum collects gently used books and sells them to raise money to support its important work promoting the literacy and well-being of inmates.