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Articles by Paul Wright

From the Editor

Welcome to the New Year. This will mark PLN's thirteenth year of publishing, and we hope to make significant strides in terms of increasing both PLN 's circulation and its size. We need an additional $500 per month to add four pages to PLN . As soon as we get ...

From the Editor

Some readers have recently contacted PLN after letters they sent to our Seattle address were returned to them by the post office marked "undeliverable as addressed." PLN 's address has not changed. Inquiries with the post office have not been very helpful. Postal officials have told us that the mail ...

From the Editor

The recent attacks of the World Trade Center towers (WTC) in New York City and the Pentagon have filled the news. Largely ignored by the corporate media has been the federal government's treatment of people convicted in previous Muslim terrorist attacks, such as the 1993 WTC bombing. It is safe ...

From the Editor

PLN frequently reports on litigation and news arising from jails. This month's cover story, America's Jails: The Dungeons of the New Millenium , takes a broad look at the problems afflicting American jails: brutality, overcrowding, medical neglect, corruption, sexual assaults, etc. In many respects jails are like prisons, but there ...

The Cost of Running Washington's Rape Camps

As the accompanying article, Not Part of My Sentence , makes clear, the sexual abuse of female prisoners by male prison employees is an endemic problem. As past issues of PLN show, this problem is not confined to any single state or prison system, but is national in scope.

Surprisingly, ...

From the Editor

September, 2001, marks the 30th anniversary of the modern prisoner rights movement in the United States. In September, 1971, prisoners in Attica, New York, rose up to protest horrendous conditions. The uprising occurred after peaceful means of protest had failed and prisoners refused to be "driven like beasts" any longer. ...

From the Editor

With this issue of PLN we are back on our normal publishing schedule. Readers should be receiving their copy of PLN around the first of the issue month.

A reminder to our prisoner readers, if prison officials censor your PLN subscription please let us know because PLN is usually not ...

From the Editor

Welcome to another issue of PLN. Right now we are still focused on getting our publishing schedule back on track so that readers receive their issue around the beginning of the issue's calender date. We expect to be back on schedule by July.

As mentioned in the April, 2001, editorial, ...

Washington DOC Hit with almost $50 Million in Verdicts and Settlements in Parole Victim Suits

In a four-month period between September, 2000 and January, 2001, the Washington Department of Corrections (DOC) was hit with separate jury verdicts for $22.4 and $15 million and settled two additional cases for $8.8 million. All four lawsuits stem from the DOC's negligent supervision of parolees in its care. The ...

Closing Washington's Window of Parole Liability

In addition to almost $50 million in settlements and verdicts assessed against the Washington DOC in recent months, the Washington DOC has paid an additional $20.6 million to settle 25 parole liability cases and pay one jury verdict since 1994. Apparently, the state had previously been able to buy off ...