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)