By Equal Justice U.S.A.

Mumia Abu-Jamal is an African American Journalist and advocate for racial and economic justice. He is currently on death row in Pennsylvania.

In 1982, Abu-Jamal was convicted of killing a Philadelphia police officer and sentenced to death despite evidence that seriously questions his guilt and points ...

PLN has reported previously on the progress of the hungerstrike in Spain by some 42 imprisoned members of GRAPO (Anti-Fascist Resistance Groups, First of October) and of the PCE(r) (Communist Party of Spain, reconstituted). The strike began on November 30, 1989, and ended February 2, 1991. This makes it one ...

From: Out Of Time 2/91

The U.S. department of in-justice denied repatriation to Italy for Silvia Baraldini. Silvia is a political prisoner, presently incarcerated in federal prison in Marianna Florida, serving a forty-three year sentence. Charged in 1982 with five acts, she was convicted on only two - an attempted ...

By Martin Roth

The Prison/Community Alliance has received a lot of letters statewide from organizations, as well as individuals, who are interested in and supportive of our stated objectives. Several of these contacts were made as a result of those of you who have shared news of the P/CA, through ...

By Laura Whitehorn

Revolutionary greetings. Like all progressive people, I've been trying to get news (news, not military advertisements) of the war, and following the anti-war activities around the country that somehow fail to make it onto the TV news. Here at FCI Lexington, you will be pleased to know, ...

Editorial Comments

By Ed Mead

The main production run of the Prisoners' Legal News is a mere 300 copies. The printing and mailing costs for last issue was a very low $173 ($63 for printing, $85 for postage, and $25 for various other expenses like phone calls and photocopying). Last ...

By Ed Mead

I've just finished reading a very good novel. And because the experience was so enjoyable, I would like to share a taste of it in the hopes that you, too, will read this book. The novel is Local Deities, written by Agnes Bushell and published in 1990 ...

News From Dwight Womens' Prison

By L.F.

Geraldine Smith is only the third woman to be sentenced to death in the history of the State of Illinois... the first occurring in the 1800s and the second in the 1930s. There was almost no media coverage of Ms. Smith's sentencing. There ...

By Paul Wright

The Black Panther Party (BPP) was originally formed in 1966 by Huey Newton and Bobby Seale. Its goal was to organize and serve the black community in the U.S., sometimes called the survival programs. This included breakfast programs for children, free clothing programs, busing to prisons, free ...

"Rehabilitation" Hoax Unveiled At ISRB Meeting

By Dan Pens

Any good confidence-artist can tell you that flawless teamwork is needed to pull off a complicated sting. If the players don't keep their stories straight the "marks" might catch 'em in a contradiction and expose them for the liars and cheats ...

By Jeff Lea

This year state lawmakers determined that Oklahoma taxpayers were paying too much state sales tax and would continue to do so in the future. Accordingly, they passed a bill allowing the tax agency to refund $20.00 this year and $40.00 each year after this, to each and ...

Update Of Canadian Women Prisoners

By Paul Wright

In our last issue of PLN (See "Oppression and Resistance at Canada's Prison for Women" page 7) we reported on events at the Prison for Women (P4W) in Kingston, Ontario, in which some 20 women prisoners had refused to lock up in ...

Why Do We Still Have A Parole Board?
By Ed Mead

Most of us on the inside know that parole supervision of released prisoners is both ineffective and a waste of taxpayers' money. Many of us have also experienced, in one way of another, the board's arbitrary and capricious decision-making ...

Exposure To Secondary Smoke Found Unlawful

The federal 9th Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled that exposing prisoners to ETS (Environmental Tobacco Smoke) violates the 8th amendments right for prisoners to be free from cruel and unusual punishment. The Court has decided that under societies "evolving standards" of decency (evidenced ...

The Clinic had me pretty stressed out the last couple of days. My arm, where the stitches were, are starting to form blisters, and to me that is not normal. My belief is that it should be healing - not blistering and I've never known blistering to be part of ...

The sign shop is making a sign that reads: "State of Washington Employee Park. Visitors and Family must be accompanied by an employee of the Washington State Penitentiary or the law enforcement community. Last year, I believe it was, the 40 acre state Game Farm was either sold or given ...

The Seattle Times reports that the Washington State Penitentiary (WSP) at Walla Walla now has 1,970 prisoners and is expected to house about 2,600 by this summer. This is a record of overcrowding at a prison long characterized for its overcrowding.

Remodeling is now taking place for it to house ...