An inmate takes a book from the library of Avlona's prison school, north of Athens, in 2021. Prison librarians provide inmates with crucial structured support around literacy, writes Tanya Talaga.Thanassis Stavrakis/The Associated Press
Nelson Mandela was wrongly imprisoned in a South African jail cell for 27 years. Once released, Mr. Mandela became the president of South Africa and a voice for fair treatment of the incarcerated. So he knew a thing or two about the prison system – and how the way we treat prisoners reflects the broader society. As he said: “No one truly knows a nation until one has been inside its jails.”
In 2015, the United Nations General Assembly adopted the Nelson Mandela Rules, aimed at bringing humane principles to the system that governs the shunned and forgotten in our prisons. Canada’s federal and provincial governments apparently haven’t bothered to read these rules, since our prisons and jails frequently break them.
Rule 12 calls for each cell to house just one prisoner overnight; in Canada, inmates are reportedly stacked three or four to a two-person cell. Rule 43 prohibits prolonged solitary confinement of more than 15 consecutive days; in Thunder Bay District Jail, where nearly all inmates are Indigenous, Adam Capay spent more than 1,500 days in solitary.
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And now, Canada may be set to defy Rule 64: “Every prison shall have a library for the use of all categories of prisoners, adequately stocked with both recreational and instructional books, and prisoners shall be encouraged to make full use of it.” Earlier this month, a decades-old program to allow incarcerated people in Quebec to pursue postsecondary education was slashed. And after Ottawa announced a 15-per-cent operating budget cut in 2025 for Correctional Services Canada over the next three years, the CSC has told stakeholders that it is preparing to eliminate all librarian positions.
There are at least 31 CSC librarians working in 38 federal prison libraries, said Tom Best, executive director of the Book Club for Inmates, a national volunteer-run charity. Librarians are trained educators and information specialists whose work in ensuring equitable access to books is particularly important for prisoners, for whom books can represent a lifeline, and a way to better themselves in preparation for reintegration. In maximum-security institutions, librarians are the ones who push the book carts down the halls, and they also provide crucial structured support around literacy; because inmate literacy rates are lower than in the general population, some struggle with simply picking up a book.
Mr. Best accompanied me when I visited the Grand Valley Institution for Women in Kitchener, Ont., last year as part of the Book Club program. About 30 women and support staff were in attendance that night, seated in a giant circle. All of them had received and read The Knowing, my third book about Indian Residential Schools and my hunt for my missing family members. We had a moving discussion about belonging, about where we come from, and about the strength of mothers.
In the past several years, the Book Club has donated around 200,000 books to federal prisons. A selection of Canadian authors have visited the clubs, such as Lawrence Hill, David Chariandy, Ian Williams, Carol Off and Linden MacIntyre. This is an amazing, volunteer-led effort to restock prisons’ barren library shelves; for context, most federal prison libraries have budgets of under $1,000 a year, Mr. Best said.
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The Book Club will persist. But eliminating the jobs of people who help rally others around the importance of reading will make things grimmer all the same.
What’s more, prison librarians are already among the lowest-paid workers in the federal system. So the government savings from cutting these positions will be marginal – but the damage to inmates’ potential rehabilitation, to institutional stability and to the mental health of those who may never see visitors will be huge.
Librarians offer simple, human interactions that steer inmates toward healing, and that matters to all Canadians. After all, these inmates will one day be released into your cities and towns – they won’t just disappear into crevices somewhere. “We want them to be productive. If we don’t give them the tools to change their lives, they’ll be back in prison and we’ll blame the system,” said Mr. Best.
Currently, “tough on crime” sentiments are popular, and bail reform efforts, such as the recently introduced Bill C-14, will lead to harsher punishments. In the context of these trends and the further diminishment of already paltry prison budgets, more inmates are likely to reoffend. “I just wish someone would ask: what did we do for that person when they were incarcerated?” said Mr. Best. “What did we do to make a difference so the crime wouldn’t be committed again?”
Libraries without librarians are just rooms. And they aren’t just a perk for prisoners: they benefit all of us.