A two-day book fair was held recently in the Beijing No.2 Prison.
To the surprise of both the bookstores and the prison authorities,
a total of more than 6,500 books were purchased by the inmates. The
book fair, the first of its sort ever held in China, revealed a
huge market for books in China's prisons.
Wang Jinliang, warden of the prison, said, the inmates of his
prison subscribe to over 1,600 kinds of newspapers and magazines
each year. Their annual spending on books and newspapers is over
200,000 yuan (US$24,000), about 100 yuan (US$12) per person, which
has reached the average level of Beijing citizens.
The prisoners' passion for knowledge indicates the big potential of
the cultural market inside prisons. For many prisoners, reading has
become an important part of their daily life. And in many ways,
prisons have become a new type of schools.
According to information from the Ministry of Justice, Chinese
prisons are working hard to help prisoners enter various reading
programs, such as holding book fairs within the prison, organizing
readers' clubs and encouraging prisoners to subscribe to their own
newspapers and magazines. Many prisons have established libraries
and made reading an important means to help re-educate the
inmates.
While holding various reading activities, prisons receive wide
support from the society. Not long ago, the editing committee of
the Beijing Encyclopedia gave a set of the newlypublished
Beijing Encyclopedia (Second Edition) to the Beijing No. 2
Prison as a gift. The book attracts the prisoners with its
thought-provoking contents in science and a wide range of
knowledge.
(China.org.cn by Zheng Guihong, December 14, 2002)