This extraordinary work is the product of the devotion of two women - Karen Hoffman (10 years, LSD) and Becky Stewart (18 years, methamphetamine). As they remark in their introduction to the book, "compiling The Tallahassee Project has been an act of unprecedented public relations in the face of extreme injustice."

Officials in the prison system frown on behavior that heightens self-esteem among their locked-up charges. Prisoners who set about to raise morale by social activism, tipping the balance away from the alienated individualism on which the subjugation of inmates depends towards the realization of a shared ideal, do so at their peril. The line they must tread between defiance of prison regs and a seemingly innocuous assertion of permitted rights is fine indeed. A perceived infraction of the code results in anything from loss of privileges to six months in the hole. Karen and Becky must be complimented on the skill with which they gained the cooperation of 100 women in the matter of printing, distributing, and collecting forms addressed to the Secretary-General and having the photographs taken to go with them. Apparently, no one lost privileges throughout this lengthy process.

With prisons bursting to the seams with prisoners innocent of acts any more deleterious than possession, distribution, manufacture or cultivation of an illegal drug - ordinary Americans, not "criminals" in the customary sense - the fear of prison officials is the passing of information from inside prison to the outside world of reporters and others in a position to question the stereotype of prisoners as a dangerous commodity. Access to prisoners by journalists has been increasingly curtailed over the past ten years, typically on grounds that prisoners take advantage of meetings with journalists to "glamorize" themselves. Put differently, the concern is that a journalist may reason that the prisoner has no business being in prison in the first place, and sway readers to conclude likewise. The wall surrounding prisons consists of more than steel and concrete. It consists also of a barrier to information which keeps the public at bay not just physically but intellectually. You don't want the truth about America's Drug War prisoners creating problems in the public mind about the policy of locking up a half-million people for involvement with illegal drugs. You don't, as a prison official, want these people telling stories to the outside world.

The Tallahassee Project is a wake-up call to the American public. For the first time on so large a scale, it tells the inside story to a public drummed into insensibility by propaganda about illegal drug use and its effect on public safety. If there is one stand on which it is fair to criticize the book, it is its emphasis on the plight of women Drug War prisoners. A collection of photos and stories made by men Drug War prisoners would lead to the same conclusion: that imprisonment for drug offenses does more harm to morals and society than any harm attributable to drugs themselves. Perhaps someone will take on a project similar to the Tallahassee Project for men Drug War prisoners. Meanwhile, Tallahassee's women give you more than details of their private grief. They detail the corruptive influence the Drug War mania has in the United States, from immoral police and prosecutor behavior to disdain for the principles of the Constitution.