When you are sentenced to a long-term prison sentence, or even a year in the county jail, your life is no longer in your own hands. Just about everything in your life is decided for you, from what you eat to what you wear to where you live to how you spend your time. When […]
Continue readingFor most people, the first question that comes to mind when they see someone in prison is—what did they do to end up behind bars? Did they kill someone? Did they commit assault? Maybe they stole something? Our minds tend to land on major “violent crimes,” like murder, rape, and assault, as the reason that […]
Continue readingMillions of people in the United States have spent time behind bars over the past 40 years. Between the 1,566 state prisons, 102 federal prisons, 2,850 local jails, 1,510 juvenile correctional facilities, 186 immigration detention facilities, and 82 Indian country jails—as well as the military prisons, civil commitment centers, state psychiatric hospitals, and prisons in […]
Continue readingIn late 2021, the movie Belfast from writer/director Kenneth Branagh—and starring Jamie Dornan, Caitriona Balfe, and Judi Dench—hit theaters nationwide. The film is a coming-of-age drama set in Northern Ireland during a period known as, “The Troubles,” which lasted from the late 1960s until the late 1990s. “The Troubles” was a violent conflict between nationalists […]
Continue readingPrisons are part of the multi-billion dollar correctional industry in the United States, and it takes thousands of people to operate these facilities throughout the country. While the inmates do most of the manual labor in a working prison, there are also paid employees from the free world who are needed to make sure things […]
Continue readingThe oldest prisons and jails in the United States were built approximately two hundred years ago. The oldest,New Jersey State Prison, dates back to 1798, but that’s nothing compared to the origins of some prisons around the world. If you’re a prison history buff, you may have heard of the infamous Newgate Prison. Located in […]
Continue readingThere are a lot of misconceptions about what being in prison is like. As with most things in life, you can’t really know or understand it unless you experience yourself. Thankfully, most of us have to rely on TV and movies to get a glimpse of prison life, but Hollywood rarely gets it right. While […]
Continue readingThere are thousands of prisons and jails in the United States, and each one of them is different. From their security level to design to inmate management system, every detention facility looks unique and does things their own way. When you venture outside of the United States, things are even more different in the world […]
Continue readingSomething that many of us take for granted in the free world is the ability to choose our housing. In America, we can live where we want, and we can rent or buy a house or an apartment. When you are convicted of a crime and sentenced to prison, the luxury of choosing your housing […]
Continue readingIt’s tax time once again, and no one is exempt–not even prison inmates. With the United States having the highest incarceration rate in the world, nearly one percent of residents age 18 or older are currently behind bars. According to the Prison Policy Initiative, that adds up to approximately 2.3 million people confined to prisons […]
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