TROUBLED by the worsening crisis in the U.S. penal system, we sent correspondents to visit penitentiaries across the country nine months ago.

Our Jan. 18 cover story reported the sense of desperation in many prisons, but also noted certain hopeful signs of beginning improvement. Last week, as anxiety turned to bloodshed at Attica, members of nine of our domestic bureaus re-examined U.S. prisons for a new cover story on one of the had most gnawing failures. The promise of last winter had not been fulfilled quickly enough.

TIME'S Nation section this week attempts to answer a number of questions: precisely what happened at Attica and why, what the alternatives were for the inmates and the authorities, and what Attica will mean for the future of prison reform. Our coverage was supervised by New York Bureau Chief Frank McCulloch, and the reporting from Attica was done by a trio of correspondents. James Willwerth went to the prison when the uprising started. Having covered the Newark riots, been gassed at the 1968 Chicago disorders and spent a year in South Viet Nam and Cambodia, Willwerth is hardly a stranger to violence. He saw the assault on Attica as "a classic tragedy. Those of us waiting outside finally realized that it would end only with the counting of the dead." Willwerth was joined by Mary Cronin and Leonard Levitt, who helped reconstruct what had happened behind the walls and how the towns people of Attica viewed the conflict. Levitt, an experienced police reporter, obtained a private interview with Corrections Commissioner Russell Oswald. Roger Williams, as signed to analyze the political impact of Attica, obtained a special interview with Governor Nelson Rockefeller. Joseph Boyce, a policeman turned journalist, assayed the mood in New York City's black neighborhoods, home to many of the Attica inmates.

A powerful ingredient of our report on Attica, we feel, are the pictures, both color and black-and-white. They were obtained by Picture Editor John Durniak and his staff. Before selecting the photographs that appear in this week's issue, they pored over thousands of negatives-- including color shots of the carnage taken inside the walls of Attica.

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