Prison Industrial Complex

Prisoners in a Hutchinson, Kansas prison can only have four rolls of toilet paper per month. I hope for everyone's sake inside the prison that four is enough.

California figured out how to solve the prison overcrowding. But all the state decided was to do the same thing it has done in the past. A pathetic prison system just got worse.

Maine plans to transfer 125 medium security prisoners to Oklahoma due to an overflow of 245 inmates, according to the Portland Press Herald. When I think prison problems I do not think Maine.

The Waco Tribune had a guest columnist write about the beliefs of how the prison helps rural communities. Will Harrell repeats twice that “Research shows” little economic success when a prison is built in a rural community. But then he never backs up the claim by citing a source or giving a figure.

A prison in Oxford England no longer has bars and cells for two. It has replaced the dreaded hole, with a mini-bar. The luxury hotel chain, Malmaison, has turned an unused prison into a lodge.

The Iowa legislator is reviewing a $250 million plan to renovate the Iowa prison system. This would include building more prisons and some money for community based programs.

I came across a game that I had no idea existed called Prison Tycoon. You are an owner of a private prison and you must build up your prison to run as effectively, efficiently and as profitable as possible.

A strange story out of Kinross, Michigan on Tuesday where four inmates’ tunnel was found only six feet away from total completion. A simple escape that would have been reminiscent of such famous Hollywood flicks like “The Shawshank Redemption” or “The Great Escape,” was stopped, by chance, just days before the completion of the inmates plans.

Corrections Corporation of America’s Political Action Committee has donated over 91% of collected funds to support Republican candidates running for the United States house, senate and presidency over the past four years.

Alabama’s legislature is considering a bill to expand the use of prisoners as employees for private businesses. The surprising move would give the prisoner a minimum wage job for manufacturing operations within the prison walls

Michigan does not tax inmates for the items they buy in the prison store like food and snacks to televisions and typewriters. But the inmates may not get away with purchasing those Ramon Noodles or typewriters without a sales tax any longer if the new tax initiative passes through the Michigan legislature.

In a blog, Paul Street brings an interesting concept up to the forefront by quoting Todd Clear. Clear, a criminologist, talked about the concept of “reverse racial reparations,” and how the practice helps the community where the prison sits.

Colorado has a shortage of laborers since passing harsh illegal immigration laws, and to fix the problem the state has decided to use prison inmates to fill the void, according to the Concord Monitor. The prisoners will get paid 60 cents a day to work on farms in the Centennial State.

Murray Light wrote a column for Buffalo News on Sunday talking about Eliot L. Spitzer’s desire to create a prison commission in order to study whether New York state could shutdown some facilities due to lack of prison growth.

A family from Iran, seeking asylum, was flying to Canada, when someone on the plane died, and the pilots chose to make an emergency landing in Puerto Rico. This family, from Iran, did not continue onto Canada when the rest of the passengers did, but instead sit inside a Corrections Corporation of America jail cell because they did not have an American passport.