The Long Development of Prison Libraries in France

Libraries have existed in French prisons since the mid-nineteenth century, and for more than a century the French Penitentiary Administration has made an effort to structure and organize them as well as to monitor what books are made available to inmates. The role and impact of these libraries has evolved slowly over time, and over the years central control was gradually relaxed. In the early 1980s, cooperative efforts between the Ministry of Culture and the Ministry of Justice opened the door for new political direction that facilitated the opening of correctional facilities to the eyes of the outside world and encouraged representatives of cultural organizations to become involved with the prison population behind the wall. Prison libraries subsequently underwent a profound transformation when public library professionals began to venture inside the prisons in order to reorganize the existing book storage areas (which had been inaccessible to inmates) into proper libraries, like those they managed in the outside world. An examination of the situation in the Rhone-Alps region of France serves as a useful starting point for an examination of the development of prison libraries over the past twenty years, as well as a discussion of the difficulties encountered and the prospects for the future.