BENTON COUNTY, ARKANSAS, Ark — The Benton County Detention Center is asking the community to donate books for inmates.
According to a Facebook post from the Benton County Sheriff's Office (BCSO), the books can be dropped off at the Benton County Detention Center clerk's office.
The following are requirements for the book donations:
- Must be paperback.
- Must not contain any pictures.
- Cannot be of an explicitly sexual or violent nature.
- Cannot have ultra-thin pages, common in many older bibles.
- Cannot have messages written in them.
- Books must be black and white in color in the inside.
- Must be in good condition, without rips, tears, or missing pages.
Lt. Shannon Jenkins, the Public Information Officer for BCSO, says that reading can help keep inmates out of trouble.
"Reading can be calming and educational. When you keep your mind busy, it seems that most seem to stay out of trouble. We like to keep our book cart full of books with good, healthy, and enjoyable content," Jenkins said.
Jenkins says that the detention center books get destroyed and worn down over time, and the detention center needs help keeping up with replacing them.
"We have a lot of inmates, and those books get destroyed so we try to keep up and keep a decent library. Now, we don't have a ton of room for storage, but we try to keep up the best we can," Jenkins said.
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