Illustration divided into two panels. The left panel shows a man with glasses surrounded by stacks of books and a bookshelf filled with red books in the background. He appears to be speaking or explaining something. The right panel shows the back of the same man's head as he looks at a computer screen. Red thought bubbles above his head contain symbols, including a fist, a building, and a flame, representing his thoughts or ideas.

Illustration courtesy of Daniel Longan, April 2022.

The JSTOR Access in Prison initiative provides learners at correctional facilities with an online mediated or an offline index option to access JSTOR’s library of scholarly, peer-reviewed journal articles and academic materials. These tools enable students to make the most of their education and develop valuable information literacy skills.

We’ve worked with more than 1,450 facilities and higher education providers in 23 countries to bring JSTOR access to more than 1 million people who are incarcerated, and we continue to expand!

Access options

To adapt to varying security needs, we’ve created access options that suit different requirements, even within the same facility.

Online access: Mediated JSTOR

Students gain access via an internet connection to a version of JSTOR designed to meet the unique needs of incarcerated learners while incorporating a correctional facility’s media review policy. There are no external links, and the site does not serve as a gateway to internet browsing. The facility will need to place pep.jstor.org on its allowed list (whitelist) and provide access to computers, laptops, tablets, or other devices with internet connectivity. We can run on DOC-owned networks and outsourced/third-party platforms such as Securus/JPay,Orijin, ATLO, Nucleos, etc.

DOCs interested in the mediated version of JSTOR can participate in a trial period to allow IT staff to evaluate JSTOR’s ability to meet facility networking requirements.

Offline access: Offline Index

We have created an index of the 500,000 most frequently cited journal articles across academic disciplines that correctional sites and higher education programs can browse through a locally installed index (available by request).

The Offline Index is designed to work in environments with minimal technology and/or tech support. It allows students to browse the titles available and then submit a manual request for the full articles. The college or university library then fulfills the requests by printing and delivering the articles to the student. The system can be set up in an offline computer lab or housed on students’ computers.

Interested in bringing JSTOR to your facility?

We encourage DOC employees to reach out to discuss the needs and goals of their facility. Hundreds of facilities in the United States have implemented at least one version of JSTOR inside, and our team is experienced in finding solutions that can work with the facility’s available resources. Some sites have fewer than five students using JSTOR in an education program, while in other cases, entire systems with more than 40,000+ people are using it.

To get started:

  1. Schedule a free, no-obligation consultation with us.
  2. Review, complete, and submit the institutional participation agreement form.
  3. Identify the type of device and IP addresses for the online versions.
  4. If using the mediated version, designate the site administrator and content reviewers and schedule a session with the JSTOR Access in Prison team. We provide training materials and hands-on learning sessions to ensure administrators and reviewers are comfortable with content management.
  5. Choose a live date.