When prisoners protest

When prisoners protest is an article that was posted on July 16, 2013 by Wilbert Rideau
who is a convicted killer that was placed in death row but later was lucky enough to be charged
with lesser man slaughter and spent 12 years of his life in solitary confinement. The intended
audience for this article was the people of America and the reason this article was posted was to
try to persuade the people of America to join the fight. The author tries to get the audience to see
it the way he sees it so they can help fight against the authorities and help the prisoners.
The author was born on February 13, 1942 and is an award winning prison journalist. He
was released from prison in 2005 after being released. He has written in the life magazine called
The Angolite and has written several books and complaints. He is also referred to as the most
rehabilitated person in America.
Wilbert Rideau has been in prison before and in the article When Prisoners Protest he is
trying to get the people of America to know what it is like and the inhumane conditions there are.
He then starts to write about the hunger strike that happened in the California Department of
corrections as an example and in the article he said, The prison protests in California are on an
unprecedented scale; amazingly, they involved, at their peak, about two-thirds of the states penal
facilities. At the beginning of this week, more than 2,500 inmates were still refusing food.
Afterwards he starts to explain if there are that many people arguing about it then it is the
authorities own fault and they need to make a change. Then he talks about how if the authorities
would listen to what the prisoners had to say then they would understand that what they want is
most often reasonable but the people who work there are abusive and stuck up. He then asks why
we should even help and then goes on saying Well, every year men from Californias Pelican

Bay and other supermax prisons around the nation are released directly from the vacuum of their
cells into free society, to live and work among you and your loved ones. As a matter of selfpreservation, maybe we should all join the prisoners request for rehabilitative opportunities that
will improve the mental health of those in solitary. which concludes his article.
I agree with his statement here because if that many people are arguing then there has to
be something wrong but him saying that the authorities are abusive and stuck up is an opinion
which doesnt really mean anything. There can be abusive authorities but for all of them to be
abusive is very unlikely and holds no water. When he talks about how prisoners are released
every year into the world does make sense to have more rehabilitative opportunities to help with
the prisoners mental state which explained very strategically by connecting to the reader and
getting them involved.
The article When Prisoners Protest was very organized and was trying to be persuasive
but there werent many facts or substantial evidence in what the author was trying to persuade
and he mainly just used opinions to support him. It is very important to have facts supporting
what you write because that can be the deciding factor of if your persuasive article is effective or
not and the way it was written to me was just a man who murdered people and went to jail for it
just wants to help the bad people but if he added facts instead of opinions and explained that he
isnt a killer and he was in a tight spot or it was an accident would have helped. What he could
have done was talk about some of the laws for the prisoners because there has to be some law
that defends prisoners to a cretin extent. He did show authority of why he is a good candidate for
this subject and lets the readers know his background of how the article applied to him.

In the article he used some logos in his writing by talking about the hunger strike which
was a good example for what he was trying to bring out. He goes on saying that 2,500 inmates
were refusing food and it helps the reader to have a better understanding of what he is saying.
The article itself was written because of the authors experience in prison and he made it his
emotion to help the prisoners because he didnt want any more prisoners to go through what he
did which was his pathos used in the article.
The author himself was the ethos because he writes about his experience in prison
making him a big part of the article. I thought that it was a really smart move to get connected to
the reader by explaining to them his real life experience with the subject. I thought it was very
organized in the way he wrote his article because he was able to show his authority and connect
to the reader but it should have had some facts to help prove his point but I think he did a good
job on giving the over all message.