Offenders locked up at the St. Mary Parish Law Enforcement Center in Centerville now have access to a full library branch inside the facility, complete with a monthly book club and bi-monthly art classes. Sheriff Gary Driskell and Major Charles Parker hosted a ribbon-cutting ceremony to mark the opening, and parish officials say it is the only formal partnership of its kind between a law enforcement agency and a library system anywhere in Louisiana.
According to WBRZ, St. Mary Parish Sheriff's Office leaders celebrated the opening of the new library for offenders held at the facility, with the new branch operating in partnership with the St. Mary Parish Library system. Library Director Ashton Myers, who launched both the book club and the art classes, received recognition alongside Sgt. Asha Randall for helping get the project off the ground. Under the setup described by the outlet, offenders read on their own time and then meet for discussion, giving the program a structure similar to community book clubs outside jail walls.
Major Parker said the programs are meant to prepare the men held at the facility to reenter their communities with the skills and knowledge needed to flourish, per the same account. That framing lines up with his own background in the building: Sheriff Driskell promoted Parker to Major and named him warden of the Law Enforcement Center in October 2025, according to KQKI News, when he succeeded Major Nick Rogers as warden of the Law Enforcement Center.
A Sheriff Who Started in the Same Jail
Driskell himself has deep roots in parish corrections. He began his law enforcement career at the parish jail in 1990, and he won election as sheriff in late 2023 with 77% of the vote before being sworn in during 2024, according to the St. Mary Parish Sheriff's Office. That history helps explain why the sheriff's office has leaned into rehabilitation-focused programming inside a facility he once worked in himself.
The Law Enforcement Center houses 320 inmates and houses state Department of Corrections prisoners while coordinating with local municipal and tribal law-enforcement agencies, per the sheriff's office. The new library joins an existing lineup of reentry programs there, including a GED program and a Transitional Work Program that partners with local employers offering tax incentives for hiring qualified offenders.
State Rules Set a Floor, Parish Goes Further
The new branch in Centerville, with its structured book club and art classes, adds a formal library partnership to the facility's programming, a model officials say remains uncommon among Louisiana parish jails.
The push toward educational programming has statistical backing. Incarcerated individuals who complete educational programming before release achieve significantly lower five-year recidivism rates than the statewide average of 40.3%, according to the Crime and Justice Institute. That data mirrors the broader shift in state criminal justice funding: Louisiana's 2017 Justice Reinvestment Initiative produced more than $152 million in reinvested savings, money that has been reinvested into community reentry, victim supports, and rehabilitative programming inside correctional facilities.
Built on Existing Ties Between Jail and Library
The Centerville library branch did not emerge from nowhere. The sheriff's office had already been engaging in public outreach, including a June visit to the Morgan City Public Library. Those efforts gave the two institutions ties to build on.
The concept of pairing public libraries with jail facilities is not unique to Louisiana. Urban programs, including San Francisco's jail library, received more than $4 million in Mellon Foundation funding and drew national attention earlier this year, as previously reported by Hoodline. St. Mary Parish's initiative, while smaller in scale, follows a similar logic in tying literacy access to reentry outcomes for people held at the Centerville facility.
