When we set a goal of getting our book, Jails to Jobs: Seven Steps to Becoming Employed, in every prison library in the United States, we had no idea our reach would extend beyond that. But it has.
We recently received an order for 50 books from an Australian distributor and wanted to find out what compelled someone Down Under to buy our book.
Well, it turns out the copies were purchased by a Sydney-area book distributor for the prisons in the state of New South Wales. (For those unfamiliar with Australia, it’s the state where Sydney is located.)
We were curious to learn why the New South Wales prison system would want our book. So we got in touch with them through the distributor and heard from one of the library technicians at the New South Wales Department of Corrective Services, who asked that his name not be mentioned.
This person’s job is to handle books for all of the correctional center libraries in New South Wales.
“We found out about the book from a prison libraries e-list our library manager subscribes to. The link was to Amazon, who we can’t buy from, hence we asked the distributor to organize the purchase,” he says.
New South Wales has 32 correctional centers and about 40 libraries.
But why our book?
“To my knowledge there are no current publications (in Australia) relating to inmates seeking work once released,” he says.
We hope our book will help those Australian inmates who have access to it launch their job search after release.
For other prisons or prison systems that might be interested, Jails to Jobs: Seven Steps to Becoming Employed can be purchased through Amazon. We also offer bulk rates to those who contact us directly.
