It's not a Dickens tale, nor a relic of America Before Enlightenment. Nope. It is possible to be put in jail for being too poor to pay municipal, city, etc., fines. And when you're in jail, you aren't working to make money to pay off those fines. A fine kettle of fish, eh? The Ohio ACLU hopes to bring this medieval practice to light; how to stop the cycle? Maybe community service?

So many citizens in prisons, so many mentally ill in prisons--do we administer anti-pyschotics to help them maintain a balanced life, or drug them into compliance? That's the balance California prison medics are working with, and there's no one-answer-fits-all. Sadly. In California, anti-psychotics "account for nearly $1 of every $5 spent on pharmaceuticals purchased for the state prison system, according to figures compiled by The Associated Press." Please note: this story appeared in the Business Section of the Washington Post. California is broke, the prison system is under federal court scrutiny, and the medical unit says its dispensing with all these drugs to avoid law suits

California's Corrections Secretary Jeff Beard said the reductions they have made in prison population has created "health care far exceeding the constitutional standard." Any further reduction in population could harm society. The federal court insists they need to release an additional 9500 inmates.

You know it's bad when your local prison is rated worse that Tent City Jail, Sheriff Joe Arpaio's personal Hell for Inmates. But two prisons have indeed been rated worse: #1 of course is ADX in Florence. CO, the "Alcatraz of the Rockies," and #2 is the Polunsky Unit, Texas's death row in Livingston. Authors of the study, James Ridgeway and Jean Casella, operate on a grant and unusual, reasonable access to prison units across the country. They know what they're talking about, and it's all grim. Thank you, Mother Jones, for running this series.

"Of the more than 8,200 inmates at the two prisons, the medical receiver estimates 40% — or 3,280 — must be moved immediately. It is not clear why certain populations are more prone to the infection than others. But from 2008 to 2010, at least 355 prisoners required hospitalization, and the receiver reported 34 deaths related to valley fever from 2006 to 2011, most of the victims African Americans."

Dawson is run by Corrections Corporation of America; CCA usually responds to document and discovery requests, but this time the Texas representatives ignored the information requests by Prison Legal News and Texas Civil Rights Project. So CCA is being sued for the information. Behind this suit is the larger one, a suit against Dawson and its controllers, for "unconscionable and unconstitutional conditions." Plaintiffs allege seven deaths and lack of medical care. The Texas legislature is currently debating whether to sell the jail, or to keep it and even buy two more, despite reductions in total state inmates.

Prison shaves the life off people--even when they are released. There is a 15.6 % increase "in the odds of death for parolees compared to people who had never been to prison, which translates to a two-year decline in life expectancy for every year served inside prison." The statistic can be overcome if the person is not reincarcerated. "The difficulty of getting proper health care in the months immediately after prison is a particular problem, Patterson said. Many times an inmate with an illness is discharged from prison with a 30-day supply of medication and little chance of connecting with a new health care provider."

The ruling covers only Columbia County, Oregon, but plaintiff Prison Legal News anticipates that other groups will help jail inmates overturn a jailhouse rule against receiving envelop mail. The policy first began, of course, in Maricopa County AZ, where the notorious sheriff worried that opening mail for inspection took too much time, and his staff found numerous instances of contraband in the letters. The practice spread to other jails. Now, though, First Amendment rights are protected--in one county at least.

My graphic novel, Prison Grievances: when to write, how to write, just had a terrific boost: Amazon.com added its special feature, "Look Inside," to its posting. Now buyers can see page after page of the art work, and learn how I integrate instruction for writing grievances.

Yelp social media accepts reviews for restaurants, etc. Now it's seeing reviews for prisons, many submitted by defense attorneys who visit a variety of prisons.