Dear Human Rights Supporter,

As we end 2020, the Covid pandemic is ravaging our nation’s prisons and jails with no end in sight. Even as vaccines are being approved to inoculate people against Covid, government agencies are announcing that the staff but not the prisoners, will be the priority in receiving these vaccines in detention facilities. For the past 9 months we have prioritized Covid coverage in our publications and made litigation to get prisoners access to our publications a top priority as it gains life or death importance. Since February, our hard working legal team working with law firms around the country has filed 10 censorship lawsuits against prisons and jails from Maryland to California to protect the free speech rights of publishers and prisoners alike.

HRDC has faced enormous organizational challenges to meet an increased demand for our services while dealing with the realities of remote work and limited office time to get everything done. Right now, we have letters from over 1,000 indigent prisoners requesting 6 issue subscriptions to Prison Legal News so they will have accurate timely information about Covid and how it impacts prisoners. It costs us a little more than $15 to provide a 6 issue subscription of PLN to a prisoner. Each issue of PLN is read by more than 10 prisoners. Our goal for giving Tuesday is to raise at least $15,000 so we can provide 1,000 PLN subscriptions to information starved prisoners.

Will you donate at least $15 to help us meet this goal? More if you can afford it and please encourage others to donate as well.

Unlike other organizations, criminal justice reform and advocacy is all the HRDC does and has done for the past 30 years. Long before there was pandemic we were reporting on inadequate medical care in prisons and jails and demanding better care and pointing out the public health implications of ignoring prisoner health care. For 30 years we have been in this struggle and have relied on support from individual donors like yourself to do all that we do.

On December 10, 2020 at 9 PM EST, HRDC will be celebrating its 30^th anniversary in a virtual event. Please join me, master of ceremonies journalist Victoria Law and our Keynote Speaker, Yale law professor James Forman Jr. for an evening of celebration and dedication. Learn More Here.

Thank you for supporting HRDC!

Paul Wright

Human Rights Defense Center, Director

Prison Legal News, Editor