Voices from a southern prison

the long version

"By 1978, The Kentucky State Reformatory in La Grange had become a sickening, dangerous place, where an inmate could get his hands on a sawed-off shotgun more easily than a clean towel.". "That year a handful of KSR prisoners managed to send a plea for help to the federal court in Louisville. The petitioners expected reprisals or, maybe worse, silence. But the letter reached a caring judge, and the prisoners had spoken up at a crucial moment in Kentucky reform politics. The suit was settled in the KSR prisoners' favor in 1981, paving the way for controversial, protracted, and expensive reforms."--BOOK JACKET.