By Paul Wright
On May 13, 1999, the Washington Department of Corrections ended its last remaining prison telemarketing program. As reported in the August, 1998, issue of PLN, prison telemarketing has had a controversial history in Washington prisons. In 1998 the Washington DOC ended its state run telemarketing operation at ...
On May 16, 2000, the Prison Activist Resource Center in Berkeley sponsored a fundraiser party for PLN in San Francisco. The hip hop/dance party featured DJ Neta, Bamudhi, Local 1200 DJs, Vine Folks and Emma Said. PLN co-founder Ed Mead spoke at the party and PLN contributing writer Mark Cook ...
By Paul Wright
As the article in this issue mentions, PLN contributing writer Mark Cook was recently released from prison after 24 years. We wish Mark the best.
Former contributing writer O'Neil Stough was recently released from prison and, unfortunately, did not do very well as he committed suicide earlier ...
In May, 1990, the first issue of Prisoners' Legal News (PLN) was published. It was hand typed, photocopied and ten pages long. The first issue was mailed to 75 potential subscribers. Its budget was $50. The first 3 issues were banned in all Washington prisons, the first 18 in all ...
Since PLN started in 1990 we have been censored in prisons and jails around the country. We have always attempted to resolve censorship issues administratively, but in cases where the goal was to keep PLN out of prison at any cost, that obviously wasn't possible. We have aggressively challenged censorship ...
This issue celebrates PLN's tenth anniversary. One thing about PLN is that we have pretty much muddled along and done the best we could. To this day, no one involved in PLN's daily operations has any professional experience in journalism or publishing. We're all self taught and learned as we ...
By now the observant reader will have noticed that this issue of Prison Legal News is 48 pages in length rather than 40. PLN recently switched printers which offered a variety of services, including higher quality newsprint and also allows us to expand in size, something our previous printer was ...
As this issue goes to press it is too early to have received any response on the matching grant campaign. Between May and January 2001, each issue of PLN will contain a bar graph showing how much has been donated to date and how much we need to raise to ...
By Paul Wright
In the February, 1999, issue of PLN we reported Mauro v. Arpaio, 147 F.3d 1137 (9th Cir. 1998) where a panel of the Ninth circuit appeals court held that a jail policy banning all sexually explicit material was unconstitutional. That ruling was vacated when the court decided ...
Thanks to the response our fundraiser has achieved, PLN was recently able to hire a second staff person, Linda, to help with our essential office tasks. Right now the main thing she has been doing is helping Fred, our office manager, get caught up on the many essential tasks that ...
