2022 in Review

Friends and Supporters,

As we are looking back to the year 2022, we are immensely thankful to you for your donations of books and money that kept us going with a growing group of volunteers. Thank you so much for supporting Missouri Prison Books!

This past year, we sent 1,152 packages to our readers totaling over 3000 books with a diverse range of topics, including woodworking, plumbing, business skills, drawing, language learning, poetry, mystery, spirituality, politics, and history. One of our most popular books remains a dictionary/thesaurus combo.

This past year also saw the introduction of a ban on physical mail in Missouri Prisons. As of July 1, 2022, the incarcerated in MO are prohibited from receiving personal mail. Instead, prisons are contracting with a Texas-based company to provide electronic copies of all first class mail with the exception of privileged/legal correspondence.

While this does not affect our service, the implications of scanned personal mail are many. Tablets are generally handed out free of charge. However, the incarcerated have to pay for services including printouts of attachments to emails. In addition, print outs of photos, birthday cards, and drawings are often of low quality. There are also privacy concerns. You can read more about this here

We are hoping that you will continue to help us grow: tell your friends, colleagues, and neighbors about us. Check out our display at Subterranean Books in the Loop. Take a look at our wish list.

Thank you again from all of us here at Missouri Prison Books!