TRL strives to serve not only the people who can come to us, but also those who cannot visit a traditional brick-and-mortar library building easily (or at all). In this spirit, staff at the Shelton library have been visiting the Washington Corrections Center (WCC) in Mason County on a regular basis for the past 12 years. We sponsor the Writers Group, which most residents of the facility are eligible to participate in. Sponsoring this group at the prison provides a lot of good to those who attend, and it gives us a beautiful chance to be the best community resource we can be for an underserved part of our community.
"Cool! ...But Why?"
When we tell people about this part of our job, most people say, “Cool!” But a few ask, “Why?” Writing, along with other forms of creative expression, helps promote good behavior in the institution, and keeps people from returning after they are released. It can also help incarcerated individuals process their thoughts and feelings about being behind bars and about life in general; it can be therapeutic. Writing and reading both encourage empathy and increase literacy and communication skills, all of which can help in finding a job after release.
Another benefit to our work that might not be as obvious is that participating in programming can provide incarcerated individuals an opportunity to feel seen and heard without having to keep their guard up.. Several regular attenders of the group over the years have said that the Writers Group is the one place where they feel comfortable to be themselves.
In addition to these reasons, but just as important, is that writing is fun! And so is facilitating the Writers Group. Those of us who lead the group enjoy being part of it and participating as much as the guys who join. We believe that all people want and need opportunities for creative expression and the chance to share their creativity with other humans who appreciate it. We do not (as some writing groups in prisons do) encourage participants to write about their prison experience, what got them there, or other psychological themes unless they want to. Instead we simply provide a space for writers to express anything they want, to be as completely free as they can be.
When we bring library programming to the prison we do it because we believe in taking library services to everyone; we want to facilitate human connections with everyone. TRL staff value "equitable access and intellectual freedom for all," and we believe that what we do in the group is worth doing anywhere and everywhere, whether in the library building, in schools, in churches, in coffee shops, or in prison.
An Invitation to the Library After Reentry
Timberland is also proud to collaborate with the Washington State Library's (WSL) Institutional Library Services (ILS) division as part of the Public Library Card Program. Through this program we are able to issue TRL library cards to individuals who are releasing to our service area from correctional facilities around the state. By partnering with ILS to issue library cards to inmates as part of the reentry process, we can ensure that they are introduced to the resources and services available to them, and that we are welcoming them to the library even before they have begun reintegrating into their communities. Because we are completing the verification and registration process in partnership with WSL, formerly incarcerated individuals do not have to worry about what kind of identity verification or documentation is required to obtain a library card and, in fact, are leaving the institution with a physical library card in-hand.
We understand that individuals reentering the community after a period of incarceration will face many challenges, and we recognize the important role that public libraries can play in easing that transition. As community connectors, public libraries provide access to technology, information and community gathering spaces, and we are keenly aware of the barriers that could prevent someone from discovering and exploring these resources post-incarceration.
Timberland Regional Library exists for many reasons. People often think of us as a place to check out books or somewhere to take the kids for story times. But we also exist to connect people in our community to each other; to help people tell their stories; and to make a limited pool of public resources go as far as we can make it. Our outreach to WCC and collaboration with WSL are a couple of the many ways we fulfill our reasons to exist.
