AI Summary
5 min readIn 1987, Paul Wright was a 21-year-old army MP who robbed and murdered a drug dealer a week before leaving the service. He got a 25-year sentence and entered Washington State’s maximum-security system. What shocked him most wasn’t the violence Hollywood had prepared him for—it was the dehumanization. Guards told him prisoners “don’t have any rights.” Wright knew that couldn’t be true, so he started learning law from jailhouse lawyers. That curiosity turned into Prison Legal News (PLN), the longest-running newspaper produced by and for incarcerated people in U.S. history. What began in May 1990 as ten hand-typed, photocopied pages distributed by hand grew into a 40-page monthly with 3,600 subscribers across the country and beyond. Wright co-founded it with Ed Mead, a former member of the George Jackson Brigade, while they were held in different prisons. Mead typed five pages in his cell; Wright typed five in his. They mailed them to a volunteer who ran to Kinko’s. Their initial mailing list was 750 people. Thirty-six years later, PLN is still publishing.
The publication as an organizing tool
Continue reading the full summary in the app — free to try.
Read Full Summary →Free • No credit card required
Never miss an episode of John Kiriakou's Dead Drop
Get every new episode summarized in your inbox — free, ~5 minutes to read.
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.
What you'll learn
- 1 S2E13 The Crusader — Dead Drop with John Kiriakou
- 2 Timestamped Outline
- 3 (00:43) **Introduction: Paul Wright and the Origin of Prison Legal News** - John introduces Paul Wright, founder of Prison Legal News (PLN), and explains how PLN changed his own life after he arrived at FCI Loretto.
- 4 (05:13) **How Paul Wright Went from Army MP to Prison Publisher** - Paul explains his background: a 21-year-old Army MP convicted of murdering a drug dealer during an armed robbery, sentenced to 25 years, and how prison reality shattered Hollywood stereotypes.
- 5 (09:06) **The Birth of Prison Legal News** - Paul describes how he and Ed Mead hand-typed ten pages each from separate prisons and sent them to an outside volunteer to photocopy at Kinkos, starting with a mailing list of 7,500 people in 1990.
- 6 (11:20) **Fighting Censorship and Retaliation** - Paul and John compare experiences with prison authorities who tried to stop their writing.
- 7 (15:32) **How PLN Got Out of Prison** - Paul explains the mechanics: he mailed articles to a volunteer who did layout and design with early desktop publishing software, then sent drafts back for approval before printing.
+ Full timestamped outline available in the app
Guests on this episode
Show Notes
IN THIS EPISODE John was hardly the first person to point out corruption in America's penal system. Paul Wright was serving a 17 year sentence for murdering a drug dealer when, in May 1990, he started The Prison Legal News. Prison changes people; it changed Paul profoundly. He transformed from a rudderless young man into a veritable crusader for prison amd legal reform.
SHOW NOTES
Learn more about Paul Wright and The Prison Legal News here.
If you're enjoying this podcast, please sample our other podcasts at Costard & Touchstone Productions. Your next podcast obsession is just a click away!
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
More from this podcast
John Kiriakou's Dead Drop →