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PLN-authored book, "Prison Nation," wins Gustavus Myers Award

Myers Center, Jan. 1, 2003. http://www.myerscenter.org
PLN-authored book, "Prison Nation," wins Gustavus Myers Award 2003

Gustavus Myers Award - 2003

Tara Herivel and Paul Wright, Editors,

Prison Nation: The Warehousing of America's Poor

(Routledge 2003)

This Myers Award recognizes the substantive contributions of a bevy of writers. Tara Herivel, a Washington State attorney, collaborated with Paul Wright, the editor of the independent monthly magazine Prison Legal News, in selecting articles on various aspects of the prison industry. Wright is currently incarcerated, and will be released this December after serving thirteen years in a Washington State prison.

Most entries are prisoner-written; progressive analysts outside write others. Insiders to the criminal justice system such as Stephen Bright, Southern Center for Human Rights, for example, discuss how the system devalues good defense work, and how judges assign cases to attorneys who are the least competent and the most likely to quickly plead out their clients. The topics of articles range from lack of effective legal representation to the impact of prisons on communities; from poor medical care for prisoners and other abuses committed by prison staff to general societal stigmatization of the poor as "superfluous people."

Prison Nation is a call to the well-intentioned citizen to become more fully aware and active in posing alternatives to the prison industrial complex.