Books For Jails: CSW| Streisand Center’s Mini Library is Collaborating with LA County Library
By Zaia Hammond, CSW| Streisand Center and Mini Library Manager
This past spring, the CSW| Streisand Center launched its very own mini library, housed inside the center, and we are thrilled to have it open for its first full academic year. Our shelves feature selections that explore, but are not limited to, themes of social justice feminism, activism, and liberation. Through these works, our library seeks to uplift BIPOC authors and build community by fostering connections through shared knowledge. With this mission in mind,we are excited to offer upcoming events and expanding initiatives centered around the mini library.
The CSW|Streisand Mini Library operates through a simple check-out library system. Visitors can scan the QR code on the “How to use the Mini Library” poster located on the bookshelf and fill out a brief Google Form. Although the library grants a six-week check-out period, our return policy is flexible– you may return a book at your earliest convenience.
As part of our growing partnerships, CSW|Streisand Center will be collaborating with LA County Library’s Books for Jails program. In partnership with the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department, and in an effort to “support literacy and life long learning at LA County Jails,” this program accepts reading material donations from the community at various LA County Library locations, which are then disseminated to jails throughout the County. According to the LAist, with approximately 15,000 incarcerated people across its facilities, the Los Angeles County jail system is the largest in the nation–yet it does not have a single official library system. Ahmanise Sanati, a UCLA alumna and former jail mental health clinician at Twins Towers Correctional Facility, now heads the LA County Library Books for Jails Program and took the initiative to change this lack of access to reading materials. In a 2023 interview with the LAist, Sanati reflected on her efforts to bring books behind bars, sharing that after a delivery at Twin Towers when previously working there “‘every time I came back, the books were gone.’” It should come as no surprise that reading is medicine for the mind and soul. As the LA County Library notes, reading is not only integral to improving educational goals, but it also provides a healthy outlet to maintain the “mental health and emotional well-being” of inmates. Books offer a means for anyone to escape their reality, and incarcerated individuals–despite their circumstances– deserve the same opportunity to escape their realities as well.
To further CSW|Streisand Center’s commitment to anti-carceral efforts, we aim to utilize our mini library to help address the scarcity of literary materials in LA County Jails. We will host a book drive to supply the Books for Jails program at our quarterly Cozy Book Swap event, taking place the week of December 8-11 from 10 a.m-2 p.m. We not only invite you to join us at the center for a festive time with the community and exchange books, but we kindly ask you to donate gently used books to our library which will be sent to the Books for Prison program. In accordance with LA County Library guidelines, please donate only paper-back books in popular genres such as fantasy, adventure, poetry, mystery, self-help etc. Donations must be in good condition and should not include hardcovers, textbooks, or works containing pornography, graphic depictions of violence or descriptions of illegal (e.g., how to commit a crime). For an extensive list of guidelines, please visit https://lacountylibrary.org/books-for-jails/.
CSW|Streisand Center
Zaia Hammond is a Class of 2026 undergraduate at UCLA majoring in Human Biology and Society with a minor in African American Studies. She currently works at the CSW|Streisand Center and serves as a Research Project Manager on the Coroner Report Project in Dr. Terence Keel’s BioCritical Studies Lab at UCLA. Her research focuses on carceral studies and prison abolition, with particular interest in how policy and institutions perpetuate disparities within the healthcare system. Through her work analyzing autopsy reports of deaths in custody at LA County jails, Zaia examines the interactions between the medical examiner/coroner system and law enforcement, highlighting negligence, systemic bias, and the operation of biomedical racism within both healthcare and carceral institutions.
