Category:
Prisons

Prison Sign Language, 1941

Back in the 1940s, talking wasn't allowed in the dining room of the Iowa State Penitentiary at Fort Madison. So the convicts developed a primitive sign language to communicate what food they wanted:
  • Upheld hand: more bread, please
  • Upraised fist: more potatoes
  • Upheld knife, fork and spoon: more stew
  • Washing motion with the hand: water
  • Thumb up and index finger straight out: coffee or tea
  • Open and close the hand as if milking a cow: milk, please!
  • Hand flat and passed back and forth across the plate: gravy
  • Fork held up: meat
  • Thumb thrust through the fingers: vinegar
  • Two fingers thrust out: salt and pepper
  • If the person at the end of the table beats the table with his spoon: dessert is on the way
[Milwaukee Sentinel — Nov 16, 1941]

Posted By: Alex - Sun Apr 14, 2013 - Comments (6)
Category: Languages, Prisons, 1940s

Last-Meal Plates

Artist Julie Green creates plates that show the last meals of death-row inmates. She's been creating these plates for 13 years and now has around 500 of them. The most popular last-meal request? Junk food from KFC and McDonald's. [Daily Mail]

Posted By: Alex - Wed Jan 30, 2013 - Comments (3)
Category: Art, Food, Junk Food, Prisons

Jugged Rooster

image
[From Life magazine for December 14 1942.]

I'm not sure what the impetus was for this brainstorm, but the letter writer has confessed to sticking a tiny chick into a jar through a small hole, then letting the chick grow to adult size totally within the confinement.

Proper punishment suggestions welcome!

Posted By: Paul - Wed Jun 16, 2010 - Comments (6)
Category: Animals, Horror, Prisons, Outsider Art, 1940s

Take your child to work day…the F-sate way!

An F-state prison guard decided that the best way to help his co-workers' kids understand what it's like to work in prison was to tase them. Please note that this is now an international story.
Bonus Quote: 'The big shock came when I got fired.' the Daily Mail

Posted By: Lovemonkey - Tue May 05, 2009 - Comments (2)
Category: Prisons, Stupidity, Children

Ferguson Safety Smock

Why you should buy a Ferguson Safety Smock:
  • They're virtually indestructible.
  • They have no hard fasteners that can be filed into weapons.
  • They have no nylon hook-and-loop fasteners that can be torn off and used as a rope.
  • They include a sanitary belt "designed for self-destructive females on their menses."
  • Plus, they make a great fashion statement!

Posted By: Alex - Tue Apr 28, 2009 - Comments (7)
Category: Fashion, Prisons

Fifty-Pound Boots

An advance in penal technology that never caught on. I found this in the San Antonio Evening News, Nov 3, 1922:

Fifty-Pound Boots to Hold Criminals
Shod with the fifty-pound "Oregon" boot of metal, dangerous criminals have little, if any, chance of escaping by making a desperate dash for liberty, especially while on long railroad journeys in the custody of an officer of the law.
This shackling device is adapted from the old ball and chain, which it is to supercede. It consists of a steel frame work that fits over the shoe in the manner shown in the accompanying illustration. The "upper" is finished off as a fifty-pound collar.
A prisoner thus shod is able to walk but slowly and with some comfort. However, if he should make any attempt to escape by running, the heavy metal collar of the boot, it is claimed, will break his leg.

Posted By: Alex - Wed Apr 22, 2009 - Comments (5)
Category: Prisons, Shoes

Two-Way Stretch

As we all know, Chuck has a recurring theme about how the Brits coddle their prisoners. Apparently, this motif goes back at least as far as 1960, the year that the Peter Sellers film TWO-WAY STRETCH premiered. In this film, Sellers and gang receive deliveries from the milkman and newsboy, keep a cat, steal the warden's ciggies, and generally make their stay quite enjoyable. Until the tough-guy guard known as "Sourkraut" shows up. See some moments below.

Posted By: Paul - Thu Apr 09, 2009 - Comments (0)
Category: Movies, Prisons, Stupid Criminals, 1960s, Europe

PX:Direct Jail Products

Inmate uniforms, modular holding cells, handcuffs, transport hoods, leg irons, belly chains, and multi-point restraint systems. PX:Direct has it all for the correctional facility do-it-yourselfer.

I'm sure there must be some legitimate reason an individual might need to buy this stuff. I just can't think of one off the top of my head. Wait. Here's an idea. Amateur experimenters could use it to recreate the Stanford Prison Experiment in their basement.

Posted By: Alex - Fri Nov 14, 2008 - Comments (3)
Category: Prisons

Ho, Ho, Ho, Hangman!

image



image
Who knew that Serbia boasted so many high-placed fans of Rankin-Bass animation?

Posted By: Paul - Thu Jul 24, 2008 - Comments (0)
Category: Celebrities, Crime, Stupid Criminals, Eccentrics, History, Historical Figure, Military, Movies, Cartoons, Prisons, Torture, 1990s

Obscene Torture

Cruel, sadistic prison guards subjecting inmates to horrible excruciations. It's a sad practice as old as history. But seldom before today has the vile ritual reached such depths as reported in this story.

What exactly is the new nadir of torture? Here's the quote:

"Houghton also said that Botas and Viveiros forced him to watch a Burger King cartoon on his office computer and sing along to a jingle that accompanied the commercial. He said that all three officers laughed and 'were getting a kick out of it … that they could take advantage of me.'”

Oh, the humanity!

Recovering my senses, and getting over the evident confusion on the prisoner's part between "cartoon" and "commercial" (his mind is obviously shattered, after all), I had to ask, "Which Burger King commercial?" Not watching much TV, I'm unsure what's currently on the airwaves that might have registered on the radar of the abusive guards. But they were after all using a computer, presumably to visit YouTube. So I found five possible torture jingles.

Which one do you find most excruciating? Or do you have another candidate?

See them after the jump.



More in extended >>

Posted By: Paul - Thu Jul 17, 2008 - Comments (3)
Category: Business, Advertising, Products, Crime, Stupid Criminals, Food, Government, Officials, Prisons, Torture

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