Overcrowded and understaffed, Texas prisons are nearing the meltdown stage. It wasn't always that way. A few California lawyers and an activist federal judge ruined what was widely acknowledged as the best prison system in the nation. The old judge reached into the pockets of Texas taxpayers and extracted several billion dollars, forcing Texans to undertake the largest prison expansion program in the history of the world. In this unblinking look at the past and present of Texas prisons, crucial questions are raised: Does the Texas prison system do what the people of Texas want it to do? Does...