×
You have 2 more free articles available this month. Subscribe today.
From the Editor
We would like to thank Youth Emergency Services in Texas for awarding PLN a $1,000 grant with which to do sample mailings. We would also like to thank an East coast prisoner, who prefers to stay anonymous, for his donation of $500 so we can run 28 page issues of PLN for July, August and September instead of our normal 24 pages.
In April I started doing a weekly radio on KPFA, the Pacifica station at 94.1 FM in San Francisco, called This Week Behind Bars . The show is seven minutes long and airs as part of Flashpoints at 5:20 PM every Wednesday afternoon. I provide news and some commentary on what is going on in America's prison system. Dan and I will soon start alternating the shows each week. If you would like to have the show carried in your area ask local radio stations to contact Flashpoints host and producer Dennis Bernstein at (510) 848-6767 and make the necessary arrangements. Recent guests on Flashpoints include Dan discussing PLN , Jennifer Vogel, the journalist who wrote the story of rebellion in Washington control units in this issue of PLN and Stephen Bright, the attorney who recently negotiated a $280,000 brutality settlement for Georgia prisoners. This is news that people need to hear about. Human rights violations that occur in distant countries get plenty of air time in this country while human rights abuses by federal, state and local governments in the U.S. are met with a deafening silence. PLN will be running a permanent ad about the radio show in future issues of PLN .
PLN 's book, The Celling of America (TCOA) is doing well. It went into a second printing last month. The April 20, 1998, edition of The Nation gave it an excellent review. Dan, Daniel and I have been appearing on radio shows and book readings across the country to promote TCOA. Dan and I appear by telephone for radio shows and by speakerphone for readings. The net effect is that we are reaching a lot more people than we normally do with PLN alone.
Activist groups that go to events should contact PLN about buying bulk copies of TCOA at a substantial discount to sell at events as a fundraiser. TCOA serves as a great introduction to the prison industrial complex, PLN and helps raise awareness about prison issues. Now groups can sell TCOA to raise some money for themselves.
We'd like to thank our readers that send us clippings about prison issues. Most prison news in this country is only covered by the local media. Very rarely does the national corporate media cover prison stories. Remember to date the clippings you send us and note the publication they came from. Keep the news coming. The reason PLN has more/better coverage of prison news in some states than we do in others is because we usually have readers in those states sending us the news about what's going on in their neck of the woods.
PLN , Dan and I receive a lot of mail, far more than we can answer, or that requires an answer for that matter. If you have questions about your subscription and expect a reply (i.e. did PLN get your donation or change of address), include an SASE. Remember that we don't do legal research for our readers. Please don't waste your time or ours with esoteric questions about state criminal law. We don't know. Our focus is prison civil rights litigation. To conserve our limited time and resources we are more likely to respond to PLN subscribers than we are to those not on PLN 's mailing list. After eight years of doing PLN I get annoyed at receiving whine, snivel and beg letters from people who want some service from PLN but don't think PLN is worth supporting by subscribing. Like ads in The Nation say: "Subscribing to our principles isn't enough!" On that note, enjoy this issue of PLN and please encourage others to subscribe.
In April I started doing a weekly radio on KPFA, the Pacifica station at 94.1 FM in San Francisco, called This Week Behind Bars . The show is seven minutes long and airs as part of Flashpoints at 5:20 PM every Wednesday afternoon. I provide news and some commentary on what is going on in America's prison system. Dan and I will soon start alternating the shows each week. If you would like to have the show carried in your area ask local radio stations to contact Flashpoints host and producer Dennis Bernstein at (510) 848-6767 and make the necessary arrangements. Recent guests on Flashpoints include Dan discussing PLN , Jennifer Vogel, the journalist who wrote the story of rebellion in Washington control units in this issue of PLN and Stephen Bright, the attorney who recently negotiated a $280,000 brutality settlement for Georgia prisoners. This is news that people need to hear about. Human rights violations that occur in distant countries get plenty of air time in this country while human rights abuses by federal, state and local governments in the U.S. are met with a deafening silence. PLN will be running a permanent ad about the radio show in future issues of PLN .
PLN 's book, The Celling of America (TCOA) is doing well. It went into a second printing last month. The April 20, 1998, edition of The Nation gave it an excellent review. Dan, Daniel and I have been appearing on radio shows and book readings across the country to promote TCOA. Dan and I appear by telephone for radio shows and by speakerphone for readings. The net effect is that we are reaching a lot more people than we normally do with PLN alone.
Activist groups that go to events should contact PLN about buying bulk copies of TCOA at a substantial discount to sell at events as a fundraiser. TCOA serves as a great introduction to the prison industrial complex, PLN and helps raise awareness about prison issues. Now groups can sell TCOA to raise some money for themselves.
We'd like to thank our readers that send us clippings about prison issues. Most prison news in this country is only covered by the local media. Very rarely does the national corporate media cover prison stories. Remember to date the clippings you send us and note the publication they came from. Keep the news coming. The reason PLN has more/better coverage of prison news in some states than we do in others is because we usually have readers in those states sending us the news about what's going on in their neck of the woods.
PLN , Dan and I receive a lot of mail, far more than we can answer, or that requires an answer for that matter. If you have questions about your subscription and expect a reply (i.e. did PLN get your donation or change of address), include an SASE. Remember that we don't do legal research for our readers. Please don't waste your time or ours with esoteric questions about state criminal law. We don't know. Our focus is prison civil rights litigation. To conserve our limited time and resources we are more likely to respond to PLN subscribers than we are to those not on PLN 's mailing list. After eight years of doing PLN I get annoyed at receiving whine, snivel and beg letters from people who want some service from PLN but don't think PLN is worth supporting by subscribing. Like ads in The Nation say: "Subscribing to our principles isn't enough!" On that note, enjoy this issue of PLN and please encourage others to subscribe.
As a digital subscriber to Prison Legal News, you can access full text and downloads for this and other premium content.
Already a subscriber? Login