Any idea where to find a black-and-white horizontally-striped t-shirts reminiscent of old style prison outfits--like what Elvis had in Jailhouse Rock? I've found whole costumes (jumpers, etc.) but I just need t-shirts.
posted on Jun 19, 2008 - 8 answers

Why haven't (or to what extent have) prisons embraced video technology? [more inside]
posted on May 21, 2008 - 13 answers

Can you identify a short story I read in grade school? [more inside]
posted on Apr 22, 2008 - 4 answers

How to find a company's Federal Tax ID # (in a hurry!) [more inside]
posted on Apr 15, 2008 - 6 answers

[Prison Filter] Do female prisoners get conjugal visits? [more inside]
posted on Feb 18, 2008 - 5 answers

What would a person have to do in order to get a one year jail sentence in the California penal system. [more inside]
posted on Feb 15, 2008 - 18 answers

Help me find literature written about life in prisons, work camps, concentration camps etc. [more inside]
posted on Feb 7, 2008 - 39 answers

Has anyone ever escaped from jail or prison using this novel method, either in fiction or in real life? [more inside]
posted on Jan 30, 2008 - 6 answers

can a paranoid schizophrenic be put in prison for having an attack in a bank and tearing up the place? No one was injured, but I did destroy many tables, chairs and television sets before I was detained. I was having both auditory and visual hallucinations.
posted on Jan 23, 2008 - 24 answers

According to these pages on the U.S. Bureau of Justice site, imprisonment for public order offenses suddenly fell by a third in 2002. Why?
posted on Jan 12, 2008 - 11 answers

I have heard that prisoners will use a trick involving sticking a bit of metal in electrical outlets to get a spark in a rather Macgyver-esque process of lighting a cigarette. Is this more urban legend than reality. [more inside]
posted on Dec 26, 2007 - 14 answers

Would getting a person to exercise before stabbing them cause them to die faster? [more inside]
posted on Dec 16, 2007 - 23 answers

I'm looking for the title and/or author of a story I read years ago. It was about, or had in it, a description of a terrible kind of prison, a vast multilayered cylinder carved inside a mountain, that would rotate slowly around its course from the efforts of the prisoners inside. The only way to free those inside was, according to the story, to keep adding new prisoners to the vacated cells to keep pulling the thing along. [more inside]
posted on Dec 11, 2007 - 14 answers

Approximately how many people are in prison and/or dead (or not) because of the drug war? [more inside]
posted on Oct 29, 2007 - 5 answers

what fun, performance-related activities would you teach in a high-security prison? [more inside]
posted on Oct 22, 2007 - 12 answers

Where can I find people who have some relationship to convict-leasing in the southern United States? Are there historical societies (African American or otherwise) that can direct me to older people who can talk about what it was like? Where else can I look? [more inside]
posted on Sep 18, 2007 - 4 answers

How much money could be saved if California executed all the prisoners on death row tomorrow? What about the country? [more inside]
posted on Jul 18, 2007 - 13 answers

Has anyone ever done time in prison for harassing a whale? [more inside]
posted on Jul 10, 2007 - 10 answers

I'm looking for additional information about the author Jack Black [more inside]
posted on May 30, 2007 - 4 answers

Many years ago I witnessed a murder and was the victim of attempted murder. The murderer was caught, and sentenced to 40 years-to-life. His first parole hearing is scheduled for 2008. I need to know what to expect. [more inside]
posted on May 2, 2007 - 13 answers

Does anyone know the title of old Italian film - Partly set in a Venetian Jail? [more inside]
posted on Feb 8, 2007 - 7 answers

How to make life in a fish bowl tolerable [more inside]
posted on Jan 20, 2007 - 33 answers

Do private prisons like the one depicted in the movie Oldboy actually exist? [more inside]
posted on Nov 26, 2006 - 12 answers

I have a friend who has served time for several DUI's, and is currently on parole. He is worried about failing a drug test, and being sent back to the slammer to complete his sentence. Are there any MeFis out there that have been on parole, failed a test for marijuana, and not been sent back to jail? [more inside]
posted on Jul 7, 2006 - 11 answers

Is there a specific socio-/psychological term for women who do this? Does it ever happen with the genders reversed?
posted on Jun 28, 2006 - 7 answers

This music video [YouTube link] is...um...hard to describe. It's also entirely in Japanese, and my wife, friends and I have all been wondering for more than two years just who these people are, and just what, exactly, they're singing about. [more inside]
posted on Apr 14, 2006 - 14 answers

I remember hearing once that someone in the audience at Johhny Cash's Folsom Prison performance - as a prisoner - was inspired by it to go on to a successful career as a singer/songwriter. Is this apocryphal? If not, who was it? Someone mentioned to me Waylon Jennings, but I don't think it's him. Google is inconclusive.
posted on Jan 22, 2006 - 17 answers

Just saw Walk the Line, which opens with Johnny Cash's performance at Folsom Prison, and I was wondering: what other bands (of any genre) have also played prisons and for what reason? I guess mental institutions count, but only if they're for the criminally insane ;-)
posted on Nov 19, 2005 - 22 answers

I'm looking for a slang word/phrase used to describe a false bar in a prison cell. The idea is that when a prison was built/expanded by inmate labor, workers would loosen one bar before it'd set too solidly in cement to make a potential escape hatch. What would inmates call this? [more inside]
posted on Oct 18, 2005 - 6 answers

Name 5 US Celebrities to have gone to jail that aren't boxers or rap stars. [more inside]
posted on Jun 14, 2005 - 51 answers

I live in a city with a fairly high homeless population, and sometimes I wonder why the *really* destitute people (those seemingly beyond any help) don't just commit a crime bad enough that they would get put in jail for several years, where they would at least receive 3 meals a day, regular lodging, medical attention and the chance to learn some sort of skill or get a GED or something. I imagine a great majority of the homeless have a drug and/or alcohol addiction that they realize couldn't continue in prison, but is that the driving factor? If you were beyond hope and had to choose to either be homeless or incarcerated for the better part of your life, which would you choose?
posted on Mar 17, 2005 - 26 answers

DrRichardKimbleFilter:

A man is arrested for murder, and appears absolutely 100% sure to be convicted. He then escapes from prison (assume no one is hurt or property damaged in the escape,) tracks down the real killer, and proves beyond any doubt whatsoever that he is innocent as all hell, and all murder charges were dropped.

How much trouble is this guy going to be in for escaping? What fate awaits him?

Asking both the strictly legal answer, and thoughts on what would actually end up happening.
posted on Dec 29, 2004 - 15 answers

"I want my phonecall!" In movies and on TV shows, the protagonist/antagonist always asks his jailers for his "one phonecall" to a lawyer. Do you really only get one phonecall? Do regular people really have a lawyer's number on them? How's this all work? (I'm not in trouble, promise)
posted on Nov 24, 2004 - 13 answers

Lately, I've been thinking a lot about Jonathan "Keith" Idema. The guy who was sentenced to 10 years in Afghanistan for running a prison and anti-terror group supposedly outside of US and Afghan control. I've read the BBC stuff that's out there. Does anyone have any other information about this guy? I heard he went to jail for fraud in the US. Also, he had a documentary filmmaker named Ed Carballlo with him. I'm interested in learning more about him as well... Anyone?
posted on Nov 23, 2004 - 5 answers

GoofyFactCheckFilter: do jail guards (specifically not prison guards) ever carry firearms? I published a short story online recently in which a guard in a county jail is carrying a gun and the person being held for questioning grabs it, chaos ensues, etc. I just received an email (from a guy I know slightly) insisting that "jail guards never carry firearms for the very reason you give -- high risk of someone grabbing it."

Now, I've never been to jail, but I've visited inmates in a maximum security prison (long story), and of course all the guards were carrying guns. So is there really some universal distinction between prison guards and jail guards regarding firearms, or was this person just being a know-it-all (and an ill-informed one at that)? I, of course, am only asking for the sake of accuracy, and not because I'm irritated.
posted on Sep 3, 2004 - 8 answers

What happens to someone's personal debt (ex. credit cards, student loans) if s/he goes to prison? Does it matter if the term is <10 years? Life? (Not that I need to worry personally, just curious.)
posted on Sep 1, 2004 - 6 answers

Everytime I read about the Stanford Prison Experiment, I become skeptical. I can believe the kinds of things that are described happened, I just can't believe they happened so fast. Is there any evidence things didn't happen as described, that the happenings were exaggerated?
posted on Aug 28, 2004 - 28 answers

How does house arrest work? (more inside)
posted on Jul 16, 2004 - 15 answers

Has anyone here been in prison? If so, would you care to share your experiences?
posted on Mar 30, 2004 - 25 answers

On behalf of a friend: when did the US close the last debtor's prison?
Google has been no help at all, and since I'm not from the US, I don't have access to any US-specific libraries or resources or anything. Any help?
posted on Mar 30, 2004 - 2 answers