In December 1997 and January 1998, statewide media attention spotlighted a "shocking" prison tele- marketing partnership between the Washington state Parks and Recreation Department and the Department of Corrections (DOC) Correctional Industries (CI). For two years prisoners at Clallam Bay Corrections Center (CBCC) manned the Parks Department's toll-free information hotline. ...
By Paul Wright
On May 4, 1998, the United States supreme court held that civil rights plaintiffs do not have to meet a heightened standard of pleading when filing suit against government officials. Lawsuits alleging an improper motive on the part of government defendants, i.e., retaliation claims, do not require ...
We would like to thank Youth Emergency Services in Texas for awarding PLN a $1,000 grant with which to do sample mailings. We would also like to thank an East coast prisoner, who prefers to stay anonymous, for his donation of $500 so we can run 28 page issues of ...
Welcome to the eighth anniversary issue of PLN . This issue marks eight continuous years of monthly publishing, and in August we'll publish our 100th issue. This is an enormous accomplishment when one considers that the bulk of prison and alternative publications measure their existence in single digits as far ...
Beginning the first of March, 1998, the PLN book The Celling of America: An Inside Look at the U.S. Prison Industry will be on sale in bookstores nationwide. To date the feedback we've received on the book has been very positive. If you've read the book please write and let ...
Where To Now For Prison Smoking?
By Paul Wright
As noted in last month's article, "Smoking, Lies and Hypocrisy," notes, the tobacco settlement between the states and the tobacco industry will have no impact on prisoners, assuming it is actually implemented. When the supreme court decided Helling v. McKinney and ...
By Paul Wright
The recent settlement proposal between the tobacco industry and the attorney general's of 41 states has been in the news a lot lately. I share a home with 158 other men, 90% of whom smoke. The walls literally weep nicotine. A woefully inadequate ventilation system blows the ...
Readers have recently asked if PLN still accepts subscription donations paid for with new, unused postage stamps. Yes, we do. Through an oversight that information wasn't included when we recently revamped our subscription flyer.
As the first PLN of 1998 we present our index for 1997. The index confirms what ...
By Paul Wright
The court of appeals for the eighth circuit held that a prisoner's demotion from administrative to punitive segregation did not implicate any federal due process liberty interest. We would not normally report this case because it involves no new or novel legal concepts, what makes this case ...
The past several months have seen a lot of changes at PLN. Our sample mailing campaign has been proceeding so that by the end of this year we will have mailed out more than 50,000 sample copies. It is still too early to tell what our total response will be. ...
