Prisoners and Their Information Needs; Prison Libraries Overview
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Date
2017
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Library Philosophy and Practice (e-journal)
Abstract
The study aims at identifying the prisoner’s information needs. The descriptive survey design
was adopted for this study. The census sampling technique was adopted for this study. Four
objectives were set for the study and the interview was used to elicit information from
respondents. As of the time of collecting data for this study, there were 936 prisoners in the
four selected prisons. Findings showed that 95% were male while 5% were female. Findings
also reveal that the information needs of prisoners covered health conditions, financial (99%),
spiritual and moral (88%), life after prison/ information on legal issues (86%), family/friends
(68%), literacy education (65%), skill acquisition (63%), right in prison (42%), prison rules
(34%), and others information needs (26%). The majority of the respondents found libraries
condition inadequate (85%). The study revealed that mosque/church were the popular ways of
meeting information needs of the prisoners (75%). This is followed by family/friends (65%),
physician/Nurses (56%), radio/television broad cast (23%), prison staff (22%),
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books/newspaper/magazine (20%), others (15%) and libraries (11%). Factors affecting
information seeking behaviour of the prisoners include, problem of uncomfortable nature of
the prison/ long delay before trial (97%), poor funding of the library and prison as a whole
(95%), building used for library is unfavourable (85%), among others.
The paper concludes that State and Federal Government should take into consideration the
prisoners information needs amongst us, thereby provide adequate funding, current information
and conducive reading room. Recommendations were put forward to enhance access to
information by the prisoners.
Description
Keywords
Prisoners information behaviour, Information needs, Awaiting trial Prisoners,, ATPs, Prison Libraries