By the late 1970s, prison writing was being published extensively in "mass-market paperbacks, newspapers, magazines, major motion pictures." In the 1980s and 1990s, however, there was something of a backlash. New York State led the legislative attack against prison writing. In 1977, the "Son of Sam" law made it illegal for convict authors to collect money from the writings. Some claim that "lthough ostensibly designed to 'protect the victim' and to keep criminals from profiting from their crimes, the real purpose of these laws was identical to the purpose of the repression of prison literature in the 1930s: to keep the American people in the dark about the American prison."