A Magazine by the Society of Professional Journalists



February 18th, 2003 • Quill Archives
A Thin Line

Wendy Zabel didn’t pull any punches in answering questions about how women live behind bars. I interviewed her in her home: a high-security prison in Florida where she’s lived for almost two decades. She described illegal activities that ranged from inmate loan sharking to “cloaking” (where inmates are “hired” by guards to act as lookouts during sexual liaisons with their charges).