California is dumping nearly half of all women inmates in state prisons back into society, or at least into "house arrest." The criteria is "Mothers who were convicted of non-serious, non-sexual crimes and have two years or less remaining on their sentences." The inmates are being released, of course, because the courts declared the overcrowding of prisons way out of bounds. (30,000 must get transfered to county jails or released home—some will go to treatment programs or halfway houses.) The bill that helped plan the release of inmates very carefully included the phrase "primary caregiver" of children, so as to be gender-neutral—although, somehow, there are no plans yet [...]

Some pessimists may worry that "the jump in debt-related arrest warrants is creating a modern-day version of debtors' prison," but let's look at the bright side: Maybe the next Charles Dickens is experiencing a creative birth at this very moment because of these horrible events! It's a small price to pay, right?

I'm thankful to have never been locked up in prison. I visited someone in prison once, and being there for even three hours sucked. Albert "Prodigy" Johnson, one half of the Queens-based rap duo Mobb Deep, currently resides at Mid-State Correctional Facility in Marcy, New York, way up near Utica, serving the third year of a three-and-a-half-year sentence for gun possession. He recently got on the phone and recorded a long, grim, threatening rap over a beat made by producer Sid Roams. It sounds much like what I imagine being locked up in prison is like. It's chilling. And not in the way that means "relaxing" at all.

Well, Lil Wayne is scheduled to go to jail today, the result of a 2007 gun possession charge. He's pretty much the biggest rap star on the planet right now-well, after Jay-Z, I suppose. He's going to Rikers Island, which is not known for being a nice place. And he'll be there for at least eight months. But with the recent incarcerations of folks like T.I. and Gucci Mane as precedent, this sort of thing is starting to seem pretty normal (again). As Wayne himself told Rolling Stone, "I just say I'm looking forward to it."

There's a hullaballoo afoot in a Dorset prison where inmates have been found getting shitfaced on anti-bacterial hand gel provided to combat swine flu. Prison brass are fuhreaking out and it's slightly confusing since it's not like these enterprising fellows weren't using trashbags rolled into towels for other clever uses, getting stabbish with anything that can be sharpened to a point, and learning, despite all differences, to dance in unison to Michael Jackson songs. Did they think they wouldn't drink something where the active ingredient is a 62 percent concentration of ethyl alcohol just because it's supposed to go on your hands? Fuck outta here. Call me when they're [...]

"The prison population of England and Wales has hit a new record high of 86,608 people," thanks to several hundred young rioters being held in the system. Yup: 86,000 people are in prison out of a population of 53,390,300. Yeah… so that's .0016% of England and Wales. (The U.S. has about 2,300,000 people in prison, out of 307,006,550 people—almost five times as many, by population.)

Guess what? This means England has surpassed its tragic colony, old Prisoncrime Island, in rates of imprisonment—with all of 22 million people, Australia has only like 30,000 people in prison. (Though they're trying desperately to up their rates!)

"Just two months after being sworn into office, Ohio Gov. John Kasich will lay out his plan for Ohio’s budget reduction on Tuesday at noon…. Ohio Representative Matt Lundy told NewsChannel5 that he learned of plans to sell the Grafton Correctional Institution and the North Coast Correctional Treatment Facility as a package to a private prison operator are part of Tuesday’s budget announcement. Right now, the North Coast Correctional Treatment Facility is privately operated, while Grafton Correctional is operated by the state." You could make this stuff up but you wouldn't be creative enough. The Ohio budget gap is $8 billion.

"Bernard Madoff, who is serving a 150-year sentence in North Carolina for running a fraud scheme that cost investors billions of dollars, was physically assaulted by another inmate in December, according to three people familiar with the matter…. The former inmate said the dispute centered on money the assailant thought he was owed by Mr. Madoff…. Mr. Madoff spends free time in the prison library on the weekends and often watches movies, including 'Lethal Weapon,' according to the former inmate. He said he chatted with the admitted Ponzi schemer on Saturdays in the library and asked for financial advice: 'He gave me ideas on my index funds.' Mr. [...]

Slate, our totally favorite website, where we all desperately want to work some day, looks at the annual statement by the good people at the Committee To Protect Journalists, who report today that 46% of journalists in jail are freelancers-and half of them work online: "A decade ago, when China first topped the list, most of those jailed were print reporters for mainstream media outlets who had gone too far in their criticism of government officials… But online journalists can't be fired, blacklisted, or, in most cases, bought off precisely because most work independently. They don't have employers who can be pressured. Chinese authorities have few options when [...]

It's not every day, or every year, that you see the New York Post lash out against the Jews. But now the paper is in an outrage over preferential short-term jail treatment, what with the Jews getting kosher food (how dare they!) and, oh, also having engagement parties for their daughters in New York City's lock-up. (How awkward-for her!) The Bernard B. Kerik Complex, as it was renamed by Giuliani, and unnamed by Bloomberg, if you have ever been a visitor, and I do not recommend it, is a rotten place to go down the rabbi(t) hole-but only for Gentiles apparently! Why did I not ask for a kosher [...]

My very, very favorite kind of American media article is the one about how prisons in other countries just don't have enough rape. These come out quite frequently! Today the Daily News adds the latest to this genre: it's all upset about how Norway's Halden Prison, where horrible, horrible person Anders Breivik may be held, isn't dank and prisoney enough for American tastes. (So this genre is sort of the opposite of the French articles about how awful the American perp walk is.) "Anders Behring Breivik won't fear the showers because every prisoner has a private bathroom," is how the Daily News is pimping this on their front page. [...]

Oh, man. T.I.'s new song is terrific. Which makes it that much sadder that the Atlantan rap star is headed back to jail for another 11 months next week, after violating his parole by getting busted for pot in L.A. last month. And it makes this bit of lyrics in particular—which are good lyrics! T.I. is an excellent rapper!—seem really very unfortunate in hindsight: "Them suckas wanna see me caged up/That chapter's over, pass the mic and set the stage up/Throw your A's up/Tell my P.O. I don't blaze up/Peewee, fire the haze up…" Oy. Here's wishing him well and hoping that this is his last trip [...]

Though it's sixteen years after Farmer v. Brennan, when the Supreme Court (essentially) decided that allowing the rape of prisoners should be considered an advanced (and culpable) form of negligence, change has been slow to come. For one thing, no one really knows how many people are raped in the adult and juvenile systems each year. The Bureau of Justice Statistics is revising their surveys now; two of their recent surveys indicate that there are 165,400 acts of sexual abuse in their reporting period. (They use "snapshots" of a single day and then extrapolate.) But an evaluation of the methods used suggests that they may be drastically undercounting.

Damn. Looks like Lil Wayne might actually go to jail for a while. Seems particularly unfortunate timing. His most recent album, The Carter III, was last year's biggest hit, selling 3 million copies. And he's supposedly readying three new ones for release in December.

In a new survey of state prisons, the number of black people sent up-river for drug offenses is shrinking, for the first time in 20 years-and also the number of white people behind bars for drugs is growing. And still! No one really wants to mention that, despite this trend, in the time period studied (1999 to 2005), courts still put away on drug charges 41,000 more black people than white people.