by Paul Wright
For all the talk of criminal justice reform. the reality of daily life for millions of caged American prisoners is amply summed up this month’s cover story reprinted from the Texas Observer which reports on the death toll of jail prisoners in Texas. Of course, it is ...
This issue of PLN marks our 32nd anniversary. Having published 384 issues since May 1990, we have been reporting on the growth of the American police state for 32 years as its prison and jail population has more than doubled from one million to almost 2.3 million reported in 2020. ...
by Paul Wright
This month’s cover story is part of our ongoing coverage from the killing fields of Southern prisons, where Georgia, Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi and Florida are vying for the title of deadliest prison system in America. The political and moral bankruptcy of the legislative and executive branches in ...
by Paul Wright
This month’s cover story on Wellpath treads a familiar road for PLN readers of how profit-driven medical care has resulted in a huge expense for taxpayers and extremely low quality health care for hundreds of thousands of prisoners around the country. The fundamental flaw is a business ...
by Paul Wright
This month’s cover story on Rikers Island is one of dozens of articles we have run on the New York City jail over the past 32 years, and it shows the entrenched nature of police state power in America. Located in the heart of America’s biggest and ...
by Paul Wright
Welcome to the first issue of PLN for the new year, as we enter 2022 and our 32nd year of publication. Last year we published an article in the June edition on the worst sheriffs in America, but like many things, that is a subjective opinion and ...
by Paul Wright
This is the last issue of Prison Legal News for 2021 and it is ending pretty much where it started in terms of widespread COVID outbreaks in prisons and jails across the country. The good news is there are now vaccines available which appear to mitigate if ...
by Paul Wright
After editing PLN for over 31 years now, it seems like all 370-plus issues of the magazine kind of blend together in my mind like one big, long magazine. A lot of stories don’t have a beginning, middle or an end but rather are like a very, ...
by Paul Wright
Recent years have seen efforts by a lot of well-meaning people referring to prisoners as “people in prison” or “incarcerated people,” former prisoners as “returning citizens,” “formerly incarcerated people” and more. Pretty much since we started publishing PLN in 1990 we have used the terms prisoners, ...
by Paul Wright
For long time readers of PLN, this month’s issue may seem like déjà vu all over again with its national coverage of prisoners being raped, especially by guards and prison staff. For many years I wrote the “News in Brief” column and would print out the ...
