"Have you guys been here before?" a female high schooler asks two young guys in baseball caps and shorts. "We have," she goes on. "We liked it so much we came back a second time." I hear an older man saying to his family, with just a tinge of irony, ...

Welcome to another year of PLN. This issue contains our case and subject index for 1999. In 1995 we decided that indexing PLN would greatly enhance its value as a research tool. All of our back issues are indexed and each January we have published the index to the previous ...

According to a highly critical report by the Illinois Auditor General's office released April 21, 1999, a tire recycling industry at the Downstate Lincoln Corr. Center provided up to $325,000 in free recycling services to private businesses over a 2-year period. It is unclear who benefited from the deals because ...

The Arizona Court of Appeals held that, as applied, the state's incarceration cost setoff law does not violate the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment or the anti-abrogation provisions of the Arizona Constitution.

A jury awarded $15,000 to Felix Duarte and $1,500 to Raymond Sidoma for injuries they sustained ...

On the cover of the October 1999 PLN was an article describing the July 9, 1999 beating death of "X-Wing" prisoner Frank Valdes at the hands of Florida State Prison (FSP) guards. The day of the killing Valdes' partner and fellow X-Wing prisoner William Van Poyck wrote a letter to ...

In 1996 Amnesty International called on the United States to "establish a rigorous independent inquiry into the use of stun belts and all other types and variants of electro-shock weapons;" it now calls for the outright banning of stun belts. "The use of the stun belt -- an inherently cruel ...

In 1998 the East Baton Rouge District Attorney's Office shelled out $1,291.27 for steak dinners to celebrate three death penalty verdicts. The DA's office used money and other assets seized in drug arrests to bankroll the celebratory dinners at a local steak house.

District Attorney Doug Moreau said the dinners ...

In September, 1999 California Governor Gray Davis vetoed legislation that would have rescinded his predecessor's policy of barring reporters from interviewing state prisoners.

The measure was supported by the California Correctional Peace Officers' Association (CCPOA) which said that barring reporters from prison makes their jobs harder, because it gives the ...

CT: In October, 1999, the state DOC announced it would send 900 prisoners to the Wallens Ridge State Prison in Virginia to relieve overcrowding. Wallens Ridge is a "super-max" prison that has been repeatedly cited for human and civil rights abuses by various human rights organizations.

FL: In October, 1999, ...

After several Florida circuit judges ordered the state prison system to stop using stun belts on prisoners, DOC Chief of Operations James Upchurch ordered the routine use of the of the belts temporarily discontinued, the Palm Beach Post reported in its 23 September, 1999, edition.

State officials say they are ...

A federal district court judge in Virginia held that a prisoner's refusal to sign an agreement to pay a court ordered fine does not allow the Bureau of Prisons (BOP) to keep him imprisoned indefinitely. This ruling amply illustrates the vast power and arrogance of the BOP. Its facts are ...

The Washington state Supreme Court held that municipalities have a duty to protect others from reasonably foreseeable harm resulting from the dangerous propensities of probationers and pretrial releasees under their supervision.

In 1990 Barry Krantz raped a 6 year old little girl while on Seattle Municipal Court probation for a ...