SUBSCRIBE
SUBSCRIBE
SLJ Blog Network +
  • 100 Scope Notes
  • A Fuse #8 Production
  • Good Comics for Kids
  • Heavy Medal: A Mock Newbery Blog
  • Teen Librarian Toolbox
  • The Classroom Bookshelf
  • The Yarn
  • Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • About TLT
  • Reviews
    • Book Reviews
    • A to Z Book Lists
    • Book Review Policy
  • Teen Issues
  • Middle Grade Mondays
  • Programs
    • TPiB
    • Tech Talk
  • Professional
    • Teen Services 101
    • Things We Didn’t Learn in Library School
  • MakerSpace
  • Projects
    • #SVYALit
    • #FSYALit
    • #MHYALit
    • #Poverty in YA Lit

June 4, 2012 by Karen Jensen, MLS

Working with Incarcerated Youth Take II, a reflection by Karen Jensen

June 4, 2012 by Karen Jensen, MLS   2 comments

Yesterday, in her post about racial stereotyping in YA lit, Stephanie mentioned working with incarcerated youth.  At my last library position, in Marion, Ohio where I worked for almost 10 years, I too had an outreach program to incarcerated youth.  This particular facility was a last ditch attempt at rehabilitation before teens were sent to the real deal; these teens – well, some of them – were trying to work their way out of this facility and hopefully go back to their lives and make different choices.  This facility housed teenage boys of all ages and races who had committed crimes such as setting fires, getting in fights, and truancy.


Each month I would put together a collection of 50 titles and check it out to a special card created for the juvenile detention center.  A gentleman from the center would come pick up the collection and then distribute them among the youth with his own system of keeping track of who had what.  Then at the end of the month he would return them and pick up a new collection of 50 titles.

It was a pretty good system to be honest, except for the issue of what, exactly, the teens could and could not read.  For example, although they requested graphic novels, the detention center eventually ruled that they did not want these titles because of the way they depicted women.  Likewise, although the guys requested wrestling magazines, these too were deemed objectionable.

SCROLL TO KEEP READING THIS POST

ADVERTISEMENT

ADVERTISEMENT

But what I really wrestled with were the types of fiction titles they requested.  You are talking some hard, graphic adult titles dealing with serial killers and rape and well – books I’m not sure you want teenagers who are already considering a life of crime reading.  So we had talks about what these collections should look like and how to balance them and provide options.  And because they only had 50 titles to choose from each month, they would choose to read things outside of their regular comfort zone.  Sometimes a note would come back to me telling me they had read something and liked it.  Often there would be requests.  Ironically, John Grisham was very popular.

When putting together my outreach collections, I always choose a balance of teen and adult titles, both nonfiction and fiction.  I would stick things in there like The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Teens by Sean Covey.  In addition, I bought and included things like 5 Minute Mysteries for more reluctant readers.  And of course I included biographies and other interesting nonfiction titles.

Doing an outreach collection like this is so different than helping connect a reader to a title through an RA interview.  There is no RA interview and there is a bridge that you must gap, in this case the institution itself and its rules, and still try to connect reader with book.  Occasionally, I succeeded, but probably not as often as one would hope.  But the coordinator on the other end would come back with feedback telling me what books the guys were reading and liking, and he would often come back with more specific requests.

This particular juvenile detention center had a yearly career day for the teens which I gladly participated in.  So each year they invited me and I put together a presentation about what I did as a librarian and how the library could help them in their quest to find out more about the occupation of their choice.  Each year that I visited I took one of our male employees with me.  A female library employee once remarked to me that she didn’t know what I was so afraid of that I had to take a male employee with me.  The truth is, as I explained to her, I didn’t take a male employee with me out of fear, I took a male employee with me because these teenage boys needed to see positive male role models; they needed to see men that they would look up to making good decisions and being successful.  They needed to see that the library was a cool place for guys.  They needed to see a guy talk about reading and the books that he liked and know that guys do in fact read and enjoy it and it was okay.

If you have a juvenile detention center near you, I would recommend that you contact them to set up some type of an outreach drop off collection.  You’ll need to spend a lot of time talking with the center about what types of materials they would and would not want the teens to have access to.  I’m all for intellectual freedom, but these teens have made choices that have taken away some of their freedoms and I think we have to respect the knowledge and experience of the institutions in these situations and follow their rules.  Be sure to work out to with your administrators the finer points of doing a drop collection, and be prepared for a certain amount of lost and damaged materials.
Doing a Drop Collection with Juvenile Detention Centers (Outreach)
1.  Establish a relationship and make your proposal
2.  Establish an outline of how many and what kinds of materials you will provide
3.  Create a unique user card in the name of the institution
4.  Set a monthly collection rotation date
5.  Make a set collection location in the library so staff know where to find the collection when you are not there.  In order to make this part easier for staff, I took care of checking out the collection myself.  They simply had to go get the crate of books and hand it to the pick up agent.
6.  When the crate of old materials is returned, staff check in materials as per procedure and bring any “snags” to me.  Likewise, any overdue notices are brought to me so that I can communicate with my primary contact.
7.  As your primary contact to keep track of what titles are being read and, if they can, feedback as to whether or not the teens liked said titles.  This will help you pull better collections in the future.

Additional Info
Helping Incarcerated Youth Turn the Page
Youth Services Wiki on Incarcerated Youth

Filed under: Uncategorized

SHARE:

Read or Leave Comments

About Karen Jensen, MLS

Karen Jensen has been a Teen Services Librarian for almost 30 years. She created TLT in 2011 and is the co-editor of The Whole Library Handbook: Teen Services with Heather Booth (ALA Editions, 2014).

ADVERTISEMENT

Related Posts

May 2023

Have Some New 2023 Mysteries and Thrillers by Riley Jensen

by Karen Jensen, MLS

April 2023

Behind the Recipes in the WINNIE ZENG Series, a guest post by author Katie Zhao

by Karen Jensen, MLS

April 2023

A Vanishing of Authors, a guest post by S. A. Patrick

by Karen Jensen, MLS

April 2023

Your Body Belongs to You, guest post by Ruchira Gupta

by Karen Jensen, MLS

April 2023

Cindy Crushes Programming: Unicorn Photo Frame

by Karen Jensen, MLS

ADVERTISEMENT

SLJ Blog Network

100 Scope Notes

Watch The Yarn LIVE with Kate DiCamillo at ALA!

by Travis Jonker

A Fuse #8 Production

Review of the Day: Papá’s Magical Water-Jug Clock by Jesús Trejo, ill. Eliza Kinkz

by Betsy Bird

Good Comics for Kids

Teen Titans | Series Review

by Esther Keller

Heavy Medal

More Mock-Newbery Titles Needed: Share June Suggestions Now

by Steven Engelfried

Teen Librarian Toolbox

Why Sad Books are Vital in Kidlit, a guest post by Cassandra Newbould

by Amanda MacGregor

The Classroom Bookshelf

The Classroom Bookshelf is Moving

by Erika Thulin Dawes

The Yarn

Trying Something New: SPEED ROUND w/ Marla Frazee, Doug Salati, Dan Santat, and Amina Luqman-Dawson

by Travis Jonker

ADVERTISEMENT

Related Articles on SLJ

Grounded in Their Communities and Hands-on Learning Across Disciplines, Libraries Can Be Critical Partners in Climate Action

A New Way to Teach Slavery. Could Kid Lit Show the Way?

Florida Teacher Fired After Tweets About Book Removals Continues Fight Against Censorship

14 Women Writers Every Aspiring Author Should Know

Stress Tested: These School Librarians Hit the Breaking Point. Here’s How They Moved On.

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. TerClark says

    June 5, 2012 at 12:56 am

    Great article, Karen. One of my former co-workers worked really hard to establish a relationship with an all girls juvenile detention center. She created an on-site library and would do book clubs there too. We even had some of the girls come to our library for book clubs and I saw the impact the books and these events had. Unfortunately, our boss didn't see the value and the relationship was severed. That still bothers me to this day. 🙁

  2. Teen Librarian's Toolbox, Karen says

    June 5, 2012 at 1:18 am

    That is unfortunate. If we believe books have value and education matters, then we must believe it for all people. I would point this administrator to the 40 Developmental Assets and how they indicate that outreach like this can help teens make different life choices and demonstrate the value of this type of programming to the communities we serve. Thanks for the comment Terri, always great to hear from you.

ADVERTISEMENT

Archives

Follow This Blog

Enter your email address below to receive notifications of new blog posts by email.

This coverage is free for all visitors. Your support makes this possible.

This coverage is free for all visitors. Your support makes this possible.

Primary Sidebar

  • News & Features
  • Reviews+
  • Technology
  • School Libraries
  • Public Libraries
  • Age Level
  • Ideas
  • Blogs
  • Classroom
  • Diversity
  • People
  • Job Zone

Reviews+

  • Book Lists
  • Best Books
  • Media
  • Reference
  • Series Made Simple
  • Tech
  • Review for SLJ
  • Review Submissions

SLJ Blog Network

  • 100 Scope Notes
  • A Fuse #8 Production
  • Good Comics for Kids
  • Heavy Medal
  • Neverending Search
  • Teen Librarian Toolbox
  • The Classroom Bookshelf
  • The Yarn

Resources

  • 2022 Youth Media Awards
  • The Newbery at 100: SLJ Celebrates the 100th Anniversary of the Award
  • Special Report | School Libraries 2021
  • Summer Reading 2021
  • Series Made Simple Spring 2021
  • SLJ Diverse Books Survey
  • Summer Programming Survey
  • Research
  • White Papers / Case Studies
  • School Librarian of the Year
  • Mathical Book Prize Collection Development Awards
  • Librarian/Teacher Collaboration Award

Events & PD

  • In-Person Events
  • Online Courses
  • Virtual Events
  • Webcasts
  • About Us
  • Contact Us
  • Advertise
  • Subscribe
  • Media Inquiries
  • Newsletter Sign Up
  • Content Submissions
  • Data Privacy
  • Terms of Use
  • Terms of Sale
  • FAQs
  • Diversity Policy
  • Careers at MSI


COPYRIGHT © 2023


COPYRIGHT © 2023