prisons on Vice
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Public Schoolteachers' Pensions Are Partially Funded by Private Prisons
Retirement funds for public school teachers (as well as other government employees) in several states have a combined $90 million invested in Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) and GEO Group, one of the largest private-prison companies in the world. And many teachers would rather that wasn't the case. Full story
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Who’s Getting Rich off the Prison-Industrial Complex?
Many of America's prisons are run by for-profit corporations, so clearly some people are making lots and lots of money off the booming business of keeping human beings in cages. But who are these people? Using some publicly available data, I came up with a few names. Full story
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Here's Why Our Magazine Is Not Safe for Prison
A copy of our Cultural Atrocities issue (released in March) got sent to a guy currently serving time in the Putnam Correctional Institution in East Palatka, Florida. The other day, we got it back, with a nice note from the folks in charge of that prison letting us know why it cou… Full story
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Pen Pals
Prisons I've Known and Yelped
I was kicked off Yelp probably about 15 times. I’m the ORIGINAL prison reviewer, along with some guy named Craig who did a nice review of Rikers four years ago and who probably got kicked off too. I lost my classic reviews, so I decided to make some more. Full story
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Pen Pals
Inmates Love Lawsuits
A prisoner named Kim Millbrook won a Supreme Court case with a handwritten petition, which is impressive. Thanks to him, inmates have the right to sue scumbag pork chops in federal jails, but the truth is that an assload of taxpayer money gets wasted on inmates’ frivolous lawsuit… Full story
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Australian Prisoners Are Giving Themselves DIY Penis Implants
Turns out that a sizable chunk of the inmate population in New South Wales, Australia, is getting inventive with their wangcentric entertainment and performing DIY penis-implant procedures on themselves with rusty razor blades and bits of scrap metal. Full story
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Pen Pals
Down in the Hole
The cops definitely use the box as a tool, and it’s been seriously overused. In New York, the box is officially called a Special Housing Unit (SHU), and it is a serious tool to keep the inmates in check. I did very limited box time, and it scared the shit out of me. Full story
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Pen Pals
Prisons Punish Families Too
Imagine your dad was locked up for most of your life. You’d grow up poor, probably full of anger, likely in a louse-filled neighborhood with unseemly influences, and you’d have a greater chance of becoming a whore or a thief or a drug dealer and following dear old Dad into jail… Full story
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The Mysterious and Depressing Case of Prisoner X
On Tuesday morning, the Australian news network ABC broadcast a story revealing the identity of the mysterious “Prisoner X” who died in solitary confinement in an Israeli prison in 2010. In fact, “Prisoner X” was the subject of a case so secret that ABC claimed even the guards in… Full story
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VICE Meets
Conrad Black
Conrad Black is a controversial former media baron who renounced his Canadian citizenship to become a British Lord, and later spent time in an American jail for fraud. We went to his sprawling estate in Toronto's luxurious Bridal Path neighborhood to chat with him about how the U… Full story
The Mare
A New Story by Mary Gaitskill
Toppling a Delicate World
Being Gay and South Asian In America
There's No Sex in Prison Showers
We Usually Wore Our Underwear
Try Not to Destroy Your Life
The First Time I Took Molly
A Teacher and Her Student
Marilynne Robinson on Staying Out of Trouble
"Whitey" Isn't Very Popular in Boston
Interviews with Some of His Old Friends