Prisoners With AIDS-Rights Advocacy Group Newsline.

• Author: Kingsbury, Kathryn

Jonesboro, Georgia Sheila Magner's son James was imprisoned in 1987. James had AIDS. "There was absolutely nothing for prisoners with AIDS," Magner says.

"Prison officials were ignorant to the point that he had to tell them about it" she adds. During the 1980s, prison administrations often segregated prisoners with AIDS from the rest of the prison population and were less likely to grant infected prisoners parole--partly because most halfway houses were not equipped to meet the needs of people with AIDS.

James Magner began to inform other prisoners about HIV issues. In 1988, he started a newsletter called the Prisoners With AIDS-Rights Advocacy Group (PWA-RAG) Newsline out of his prison cell.

Now, says Sheila, the Newsline "goes everywhere in the United States, from Alaska to Hawaii to Puerto Rico," and reaches 131 Canadian prisons.

Each thirty-two page issue contains articles and letters from prisoners, as well as news on the latest medical developments. The newsletter is written in both Spanish and English.

"We let them know what's going on outside," says Sheila. "They have access to very little information in the prisons." For example, the fall issue discussed protease inhibitors--the newest and most promising drug used to treat AIDS.

When James passed away from AIDS-related illness in 1994 Sheila and her husband, Robert, picked up their son's project. Now they edit the...