Exconvicts California

After two terms and a total of 10 years in prison, Mark Cook doesn't think freedom is much to celebrate. For one thing, his feet hurt--he never walked so much in the joint. For another, it's harder to stay clean. Sure, drugs were everywhere in prison, but prices were less tempting. That's the other thing about the outside: Temptation. On skid row, where Mark lives, temptation is like oxygen.

After two terms and a total of 10 years in prison, Mark Cook doesn't think freedom is much to celebrate. For one thing, his feet hurt--he never walked so much in the joint. For another, it's harder to stay clean. Sure, drugs were everywhere in prison, but prices were less tempting. That's the other thing about the outside: Temptation. On skid row, where Mark lives, temptation is like oxygen.

GOV. ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER is a medical paradox. Ever since breaking his leg, he has been strengthening his spine. The reformer who came into office in 2003 with big ideas about fixing a badly broken prison system, then dropped them like 500-pound barbells in the face of the same drearily predictable political and union opposition that has turned California's system into a national disgrace, is suddenly returning to his old form.