The Prince George Regional Correctional Centre and the Prince George Public Library have partnered to offer library services at the jail as part of the Indigenous, Cultural, Spiritual Support Department programming.
“I came up with the idea of an Indigenous-only library that promotes Indigenous authors, Indigenous themes – all kinds of genres and also to have something different that isn’t actually happening in any other correction centres in BC,” Cris Bustamante-Araya from the Prince George Regional Correctional Centre, said. “So I reached out to the Prince George Public Library – that’s something that we do for inclusivity – we partner with groups to bring resources to our people in custody. The big reason why I did this – it wasn’t just for Truth & Reconciliation but it’s also to promote emotional and mental wellness while promoting reintegration into community.”
Bustamante-Araya said that many of the folks in the jail may never have set foot in a library before.
“So I thought what better way to make this connection so I reached out to Raghu (Lokanathan),” Bustamante-Araya said. “He thought this was a really great idea.”
As part of the community engagement program at the public library Lokanathan runs the home service that offers delivery of books to those who have mobility issues that prevent them from coming to the library on their own. Lokanathan said this program is a bit of a departure for both the library and the correctional centre in the best possible way.
“There’s an over-representation of Indigenous people in correctional centres in the province... and those in this regional correctional centre come from all over and as a result are then disconnected from their communities so this library program will help to bring some of that connection back.”
With support from library staff and board directors, the project came together pretty quickly, he added.
“One of the many benefits that came from this project was told to me by a client who said his time away from the units, coming into the quiet library ‘shut down the noise’ in his head,” Bustamante-Araya recalled. “At first I didn’t really quite understand what he was saying because obviously, we’re not inmates, right? A lot of the emotional factors, including trauma, keeps playing in their minds and they have all day to relive all that so providing an hour session to come in and read books just gives them a break. Another benefit is that many clients have said when they reintegrate within the community they will go to the library with their children to access books and resources. And I thought, man, this is great. We didn’t realize the positive ripple affect this would have. So we’ve had lots of positive feedback and it’s still going strong. More and more people are requesting to come into the library – it’s not a big library – we have about 100 books – some from the library, some from my own collection and we’ll soon move into the next phase that will include audio visual items. The library is having a really huge positive impact on our Indigenous clients, our non-Indigenous clients and the staff, too.”
The Prince George Regional Correctional Centre was the pilot project for the Indigenous, Cultural, Spiritual Support Department and it became fully funded last year. It is the first of its kind in BC.
“This is only the first proposal that has gone through the program with many more to come,” Bustamante-Araya said.
