Marcia Wagner and Richard J Barron are sad, but fairly typical employees of the Pennsylvania Department of Public Welfare. Like many of their colleagues they appear to be cheats; even cruel and heartless. The Department of Public Welfare or "DPW," often called "welfare" or "public assistance," is the agency which is supposed to assist needy Pennsylvania citizens. It fails in its most basic responsibility. Instead of carrying out its humane mission in a fair and even-handed way, employees of DPW are biased and discriminate. It's certainly not racial discrimination. As a matter of fact, blacks are favored and given extra considerations and leeway. At DPW, at least, blacks are doled more than any other group. The discrimination is against former prisoners. If you're a prisoner and expecting to be released, expect damn little assistance from the likes of Marcia Wagner of Richard Barron. Especially if you had a sexual offense or a high-profile case, you're going to be screwed. The Wagner/Barron bunch will diligently search for excuses to deny benefits even to the most needy of former prisoners. And after years in prison, you'll definately have few if any resources. Because of Pennsylvania's cruelly long sentences, many prisoners now being released, are old. Most suffer from more-or-less serious ailments. DPW is supposed to help provide medical care for such persons. Instead, DPW employees do their best to deprive seriously ill former prisoners of any medical care. Perhaps their goal is to help kill-off the prisoner that the prisons failed to kill. DPW is also supposed to generously provide a few dollars in "cash assistance" and an account from which a few dollars of food may be purchased. Perhaps the Wagner/Barron ilk allow a few fortunate former prisoners of survive, but many are deprived of both food and cash. The idea is clearly to turn the man back to crime or to have him forced back into prison. Richard Barron is a denizen of the town of Mechanicsburg near Carlisle, in South-Central Pennsylvania. Marcia Wagner seems to be from Fayetteville, down near Chambersburg. It's their good fortune that neither of them needs assistance just at the moment. With the economy being so bad, it may be different for them tomorrow. Former prisoners should expect to have to fight and struggle to get any assistance. Even then, the chances are that they'll fail - just as DPW has failed. It's no longer an agency of compassion and help. It no longer is there to benefit needy citizens. It strands former prisoners, the impoverished and the needy. The sick and invalid need not apply. Maybe a former prisoner can stand on the street corner and a church group will give him a bit of medical care. He won't get it from the Hershey Medical Center or from most other Pennsylvania hospitals. He certainly won't get it from DPW or its minions such as Marcia Wagner or Richard Barron. They aren't there to help. They're there to harm.