It Happened To Me By: Michael Crowe In 1998, 14 year old Michael Crowe was coerced into confessing that he murdered his sister after several grueling rounds of interrogations by Escondido County, CA. detectives, all of which were captured on videotape. Here's how he described his ordeal in an article he wrote for Jane magazine December 2002.

Mad In The USA By: Bill Berkowitz Several hundred thousand mentally ill prisoners warehoused in correctional facilities throughout the country. Prisons operate under "rules designed for punishment," -- not treatment.

Californians Thank Inmate Firefighters By: The Associated Press

DNA Denials By: William Sessions  --Former Federal Judge & FBI Director-- No right to refuse post-conviction tests.

Prosecutorial Resistance to Exculpatory DNA Evidence By: Edward Lazarus  --Former Federal Prosecutor-- Why we must overcome it, and what institutional safeguards will help us do so.

Leave Aside All Hope Ye Who Enter Here By: Anthony M. Kennedy   --Supreme Court Justice-- Prisons & Mandatory Minimums. Keynote address, American Bar Association annual meeting in San Francisco.

All The Kings Horses and All The Kings Men . . . By: Jim Love  --Prisoner-- FROM THE FRONT LINE The Judicial System in the United States is not only bankrupt of human resources but is deceiving the American People, and it can be PROVEN statistically.

The Wall By: J. J. Maloney  --Ex-Offender-- A first person account of what it was like to serve time in the maximum-security prison at Jefferson City, Missouri.

Three Strikes Your Out! By: Christine D Patterson The California Societies New Way of Saying: "OUT of SIGHT" - "OUT of MIND."

Prisoners Are Citizens By: Gregory Frederick  --Prisoner-- What goes on here is quite different from what the movies and the television specials and media histories describe.

Catch and Release By: Margaret Talbot   The inevitable consequence of America's high incarceration rate is a high prison-release rate—and the prisoners getting out are more often more violent or antisocial than they were before. It's time to rethink—and rebuild—rehabilitation and parole.

I Will Not Stand For It! By: Illinois Governor George Ryan   Text of the Governor's Speech at Northwestern University College of Law commuting the sentences of all death row inmates.

Let's Get To The Truth By: Jim Love  --Prisoner-- FROM THE FRONT LINE Let's give them a chance to prove their innocence. The Procedural Default Doctrine cause the dismissal of serious federal constitutional errors in State court trials without those errors ever being reviewed or ruled upon by any federal court.

Why "Megan's" Laws Are Unconstitutional By: Jim Love  --Prisoner-- FROM THE FRONT LINE The best kept secret in today's society. The truth has become pliable commodity in this nation, distorted to fit political agendas, preying, for the sake of votes, on the most unpopular of all crimes.

God's Justice and Ours By: Antonin Scalia   --Supreme Court Justice-- Justifying the Death Penalty. Remarks given at a conference sponsored by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life .

Incarcerated Love By: Ken  aka Tebkrg Is this the most atrocious thing that one could consider?  How on earth could you love a Prisoner?  Are you crazy?  They are criminals!  How could you?

Surviving Murder By: Renee Russell  --Victim-- "When one door of happiness closes - Another one opens.  But often we look so long at the closed door, that we do not see the one which has been opened for us."  -Helen Keller

Collateral Damage By: Jim Love  --Prisoner-- FROM THE FRONT LINE The government considers those innocent in prison as collateral damage. They are simply the cost of enforcing law and order.

Sentencing Guidelines Misapplied By: Michael S. Gelacak --Former vice chairman of the United States Sentencing Commission-- There are hundreds, if not thousands, of cases where the federal sentencing guidelines have been misapplied.

Cracking The Code Of Silence By: Keith L. Martin The code of silence amongst corrections staff is alive and well.

Civics - An Advanced Course Taught Only In Prison By: Jim Love  --Prisoner-- FROM THE FRONT LINE Each year thousands of criminal defendants across this nation are denied their federal rights as a citizen of the United States, in lieu of State's rights to the "finality" of convictions.

Once You Are Accused By: Jim Love  --Prisoner-- FROM THE FRONT LINE Statistically 93% of all prisoners plead guilty to their crimes in open court. Yet the Department of Justice recognizes 8 to 12% of state prisoners are innocent, and 4% of Federal prisoners are innocent. Why is there an overlap? This article answers that question.

The Monster I Love Provided By: Surviving The System A Guide to communicating, supporting, accepting and unconditionally loving the prisoner in your life.

Behind Bars By: Dan Gardner  The case against an American style justice system;  Across the world, politicians have heard that the U.S. has found the solution to crime, but the American illusion of safety through punishment has been bought at an awful expense.

The Lottery More Fair Than Post-Conviction Process By: Michael Montalvo  --Prisoner-- The lottery is fairly decided, and the rules don't change

The Defense Rests -- Permanently By: Craig Horowitz  Innovations like mandatory sentencing and the plea bargaining it engenders are stacking the criminal-justice system against defendants while beginning to make superstar defense lawyers obsolete. No one feels sorry for the lawyers, of course. But is something valuable -- like, say, the presumption of innocence -- in danger of being lost?

Legal FAQs By: Betty Mydland    The most common questions we get from those convicted or awaiting conviction.

Victim Impact Statement By: Hector Black    All the darkness in the world cannot extinguish the light of a single candle. Editor's Note:  We Need To See All Sides. . . be prepared for emotions.

Curing The Blister By Amputating The Hand By: Caryn Graves War on Drugs" have caused much more harm than good, regrettably however, there are very strong interest groups that will resist any change.

Apologies & Forgiveness Submitted By: Betsy Wolfenden Violent offenders apologize for murder and rape.  Victims of crime tell their stories of forgiveness and healing.

Survival Of The Fittest By: Robert T. Northup   --Prisoner-- Cell Conditions, Torture, Strip Cells, Isolation, Meal Restriction, Suicides, Forced Medication.

Roaming Rikers By: Jennifer Gonnerman Stun Shields, Stray Cats, Buck-Fifties, Boofing: The Top Brass's Tour of America's Largest Penal Colony, Rikers Island.

Rape Used As Control In U.S. Prisons By: Neve Gordon Divide and conquer is the name of the game; the fact that it amounts to horrendous violations of human rights does not really interest the prison authorities.  As much as 20 percent of 2 million inmates held in U.S. prisons live in perpetual fear.

Am I The Only One? By: Ernie Merchant   --Ex-Offender-- A story not so uncommon behind prison walls, but rarely talked about in the free world.

The Jaws That Bite, The Claws That Catch By: Gary Brooks Waid   --Prisoner-- How dare we!  How dare we penalize our children for our greed and our mismanaged society. How dare we think that our kids are sacrificeable. Shame on us; shame on our house.  Just one case in point is the trial and conviction of Jerome Street.

What's Cruel and Unusual?  The View From Behind Prison Bars By: San Francisco Chronicle Former and current prisoners address the question: "Do conditions in our nation's prisons violate the Constitution's guarantee against cruel and unusual punishment?"  Here are excerpts from their letters.

Prison Industry vs. Prisoner Rehabilitation In Florida By: Author's Name Omitted By Request The State of Florida has continually denied the convict a chance for a better life. They have sold him to labor for private industries and have not utilized the systems in place such as Liberal Arts Education and Vocational Rehabilitation to assist the convict in becoming a functioning member of society.

Rehabilitation vs Incarceration: Non-Violent Women Drug Offenders By: Charon Schwartz   --Prisoner-- < I am a daughter, a sister, a mother of four children, a classical pianist and teacher, a drug addict, a felon, and inmate #N87420 of the Illinois Department of Corrections.

Life After Death By: Blake R. Pirtle   --Prisoner-- You want to step into my world; It’s a sicopsychotic state of bliss. You've been delayed in the real world. How many times have you hit and missed? Your cat-scan shows disfiguration, I wanna laugh myself to death. With a misfired. . . . . .

Let Us Remember What We Are By: Calbraith MacLeod   --Prisoner-- A prospective from an inmate serving 40 years.

The Day Jody Came to Visit Me By: K. Mudica   --Wife of Prisoner-- "Jody" is the name that prisoners use when referring to the man that "takes care of your wife" while they are incarcerated.

Suppression of Religious Freedom Submitted By: Myra Jackson   --For Prisoners-- Washington DOC Breeds Home Grown Terrorist Employees. Written by a correspondent inside Washington State Penitentiary at Walla Walla.

To Kill, Or Be Killed By: Steve Henderson   --Prisoner-- A horrifying account of two men nearly murdered by employees at the Clallam Bay Correction Center.

The American Dream: Free Enterprise By: Seth M. Ferranti   --Prisoner-- This biographical story describes one prisoner’s experiences that led him to federal prison, and the steps he is taking to cope with his time.

Liberty And Justice For Some By: Rev. Jesse L. Jackson, Sr. Mass incarceration comes at a moral cost to every American.

Bad Investment By: Governor Gary E. Johnson (R-NM) The War on Drugs is just money down the drain.