Our Mission
Reading With Conviction has a simple mission statement:
Reading With Conviction is dedicated to donating books to the Texas Department of Criminal Justice for use in libraries and educational programs. We will strive to do so as efficiently as possible, so that the contributions and efforts of our donors go towards their intended purpose of rehabilitation and literacy.
You make this happen with your donation of money or books.
Donating anything to a prison is not a simple matter, and books are no exception. To ensure that our contributions make it to the shelves of prison libraries while imposing a minimal amount of time and expense on the very busy employees of the TDCJ, please make sure all your books conform to these guidelines before donating. You can also purchase new books on our wish list from Amazon.com, or donate cash using the convenient link on the sidebar.
Questions? Comments? You can leave public comments on this page, which may benefit others, or you can send a private email via the contact form on the Contact page.
In 2009 we shipped 1265 books to the TDC, passing last year’s total of 1,190. In 2010, we are up to a total of 652. A special thanks to the donors who recently made our Cisco fund raiser a big success:
- Mike H.
- Robert W.
- Jim X.
- David C.
- Krishnan I.
- Nhuhoang H.
- Sam A.
- Rowan M.
- David P.
- Ankita J.
- Randy J.
And thanks to all our non-Cisco donors:
- Vadim K.
- Cathy Z.
- Brenda R.
- Erin T.
- Greg F.
- Keith E.
- John P.
- Janice and Craig L.
- Marsha S./Tech-Line Products, maker of the incredible GlassMat
- Google Inc.
- Lisa and Darrell R.
- Virginia H.
- Rowan McF.
- Chris S.
- Rebecca W.
- O’Reilly and Associates
- Jules G.
- Jeff and Sheila S.
- St. George’s Books
- Kaitlin N.
- Susan S.
- Michael S.
- Joey N.
- Anonymous
- Stephanie R.
- Mark N.
- Denise N.
You can help by using the donation box to the right. Funds will be applied 100% towards the purchase of books. Our average purchase price is $2, so your $20 donation can end up adding 8-10 books to the library shelves.
How can i send books to an inmate ?
@Laura:
You cannot send books directly to an inmate.
In the past, TDCJ has allowed inmates to receive books directly from well-known booksellers such as Amazon.com. You can try the instructions here:
http://www.ehow.com/how_5146267_send-books-magazines-texas-inmates.html
No guarantees though.
Just sending a paperback book to an offender is going to cost you at least $10 when all is said and done. Donating the same $10 to Reading With Conviction will supply the system with at least 10 books, so please consider doing that as well!