Article: FACES OF HOPE; Legal Aid brings jail to justice; Agency's mission to help poor put it into conflict with county

It was Sheila Lynn Gibbons' first encounter with the criminal justice system.

Arrested on a drug charge and sent to the Milwaukee County Jail, she sat in a crowded holding room with dozens of men and women, waiting for her name to be called.

Seconds, she said, turned to minutes, minutes to hours. But before being booked on a felony count of manufacturing/delivering cocaine, she and more than a dozen other women were moved, she said.

"They threw us all in one tiny cell. I couldn't move. I could hardly breathe," she said. "There was no real protection. I was frightened."

Gibbons is one of 450 former County Jail inmates who have stepped forward to tell their stories to attorneys with the Legal ...

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