Voices from a Southern Prison

By Lloyd C. Anderson

Rats, tainted food, leaky sewage pipes: they only began to hint at the anarchy inside the Kentucky State Reformatory in La Grange. A barracks-style "warehouse" prison straight out of an old mobster film, KSR was three-quarters over its intended capacity by 1978. It 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 signs seemed right to take on the old-boy network whose byword on prison conditions was "ain't no riots, ain't no problems." The suit was settled in the KSR prisoners' favor in 1981, paving the way for controversial, protracted, and expensive reforms. Written by Lloyd C. Anderson, the head of the KSR prisoners' legal team, Voices from a Southern Prison quotes extensively from recollections of many players in the case, from the judge who presided over it to the journalist who put it in the headlines. Most important, we hear from three inmates who emerged as leaders among their fellow plaintiffs: James "Shorty" Thompson, Wilgus Haddix, and Walter Harris. As our nation's penal system expands on an unprecedented scale, the KSR scandal offers timely lessons about entrenched attitudes toward prisons. Thus far, says Anderson, they seem lost on the strategists of our "War on Crime."

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0820322350
• ISBN13: 9780820322353
• Release Date: October 2000
• Publisher: Univ of Georgia Pr
• Length: 304 Pages
• Weight: 1.32 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.0" x 1.0" x 6.0"

Customer Reviews

Captivating journey from horror to reform

A small group of men find themselves in a position with no choice but to challenge the conditions of the Kentucky prison system, even though the risks of an open challenge are not minimal. Oral histories introduce the characters of this legal battle, creating empathy for the prisoners, the administration, the court, and the counsel. The author skillfully introduces legal maneuvering from the point of view of the participants in an easy-to-understand manner. The lives of the men, the legal maneuvering, and the stark conditions of the prisons, all flow together in a manner that will keep one from putting down this one.