Louisiana Teen Who Hung Nooses Gets Four Months in Prison A Louisiana teenager who hung nooses off the back of his truck to intimidate a group of black civil rights demonstrators has been sentenced to four months in prison. Federal prosecutors say 19-year-old Jeremiah Munsen displayed the nooses when he drove past people who had attended a massive civil rights march in Jena on Sept. 20.
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Inmates in a California prison are about to have access to free condoms as part of a controversial new pilot program that hopes to limit the spread of STDs among inmates. The prison will get 10 condom vending machines that will be stocked with 1,200 condoms a week.
The hope is that the condoms will limit the spread of sexually transmitted diseases among inmates. A spokeswoman for the Center for Health Justice says, "We know risk behavior is being reduced.
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While California inmates were busy fighting fires this month, prisoners in South Carolina were stitching up some brassieres for Victoria's Secret. That's right. Check that tag, your bra might be the new license plate, an arguably more useful product, I'd say.
Mother Jones has a whole list of common goods that are now sourced to prisons.
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The beauty of the Internet is getting to say exactly what you want in a public forum, right?(Well that and stalking ex-boyfriends and shopping at work, but I digress.) The ability to speak one's mind in bytes and blips has landed one blogger with a jail sentence for extremism. A Russian man who called the local police “scum” and calling for the clean-up of the force he blogged that the police should be burned in the town square twice a day. For this posting, was convicted of “inciting hatred or enmity” and given a one-year suspended sentence.
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This week, the US House approved a measure implementing national standards on juvenile boot camps intended to rehabilitate troubled youth.
The bill passed 318-103, and would nix excessive "tough love" practices like withholding water, food, clothing, shelter or medical care. The new law would allow physical restraint only when the safety of the child or others is in peril, and it would allow residents reasonable access to a telephone.
Rep. George Miller (D-CA) said of the decision, "Today we are taking an important step toward ending the horrific abuses that have gone on far too long in the residential programs for teens."
It's not a slam dunk, however.
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Though I don't know of many prisons guarded by the likes of the two pictured below, with the changes happening to crime and punishment in the US, it might not be long. With one out of every 100 Americans behind bars, and prisons turning criminals out to meet their budgets, the debate between what's a human right, and what liberties need be taken away as punishment is a tricky one. Several states have just come to some conclusions — on the side of rights.
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Following a giant prison break over the weekend freeing 1,200 criminals, Afghanistan has threatened to send troops across the border with Pakistan in an effort to hunt down Taliban leadership, who they blame for the explosion and flood of escapees. The threat did not sit well with Pakistan’s prime minister who responded: [we will] "not allow anyone to interfere in our national limits and our affairs.”
Hamid Karzai, the Afghanistan president delivered the bellicose speech giving many in the region pause: “When [the Taliban] cross the territory from Pakistan to come and kill Afghans and kill coalition troops, it exactly gives us the right to go back and do the same.” Afghanistan does not have the ability to send troops into Pakistan without US military and NATO consent, though it seems that friction is increasing along these lines.
The spectacularly bold prison break attack by Taliban forces on a prison near Kandahar Friday evening included two truck bombs, assault rifles and rocket-propelled grenades and was thought to be exceptionally planned. After the Taliban blew up the walls of the prison killing fifteen guards, they freed close to 1,200 prisoners.
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80 years ago Alabama passed a law that gave sheriffs $1.75 a day to cover the cost of prisoner grub. If they didn't spend that much, they got to keep the leftover dough. Most Alabama counties still operate under this system, with the same per diem — and some sheriffs are actually making money on top of their salaries.
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"Snake Man" Slithers Out of Prison A man has escaped from his Austrian jail cell by squeezing through a food hatch in the door, police said on Wednesday. The 19-year old Kosovan, who weighed less than 121 pounds, was being held at the prison in Linz for entering the country illegally, police spokesman Alexander Niederwimmer told APA news agency.
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Both sides of the pond are facing a prison problem. In the US, states facing budget crises are now looking at an alternative to raising taxes — let's just say it's a lock-checking idea. They're letting prisoners go free well before their sentences are completed.
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