Within Bars But Not Without Rights: Legal Information And Library Access for Incarcerated Persons
By Alan Kilpatrick
I am participating in a panel presentation at the 2024 Canadian Association of Law Libraries Conference. Here is the session description:
Within Bars But Not Without Rights: Legal Information And Library Access for Incarcerated Persons
Tuesday, June 25, 10:00 am – 12:00 pm
Le Centre Sheraton Montreal Hotel, 1201 René-Lévesque Blvd W, Montreal, Quebec H3B 2L7
Drummond C-E
This session is free for all. Preregistration is required as space is limited. Register here.
Prison libraries are fundamental as they provide access to information about the rights of the incarcerated person and the tools necessary to access those rights.
Imprisoned Canadians are an underserved segment of the population who lack adequate access to legal information and library services. Most provincial prisons do not have formal libraries. Without a legislated requirement for library access to books and materials, incarcerated persons lack recreational, cultural, educational, and law reading materials.
As more legal information is placed online, incarcerated persons are being excluded from simple access to the law. The “language of law” is not available to this group.
Join an impressive group of panelists and advocates from across the country working to better connect their province’s incarcerated populations with legal information and library services:
• The Honourable Kim Pate, Senate of Canada
• Helen Anderson, Director, CLEO Connect
• Ava Sinclair, Buffalo Sage Wellness House
• Alan Kilpatrick, Law Society of Saskatchewan
• Romy Otayek, Centre de recherche de Montréal sur les inégalités sociales, les discriminations et les pratiques alternatives de citoyenneté
• Karen Sawatzky, Manitoba Law Library
• Kirsten Wurmann, Manitoba Library Association
Find out more about these initiatives: the barriers and challenges of working within carceral environments, successful projects and lessons learned, and take away concrete ideas of how to serve incarcerated persons in your area.
While some of the panelists are Francophone, this session will be primarily offered in English.
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