inmates

Americans like to love, but also like to incarcerate.

Indeed, despite only enjoying 5 percent of the world's human beings, the United States seems to be home to almost a quarter of all the world's prisoners.

Who could not have imagined, then, that some hardy, enterprising soul would see in this population a market gap?

Please greet, therefore, Meet-An-Inmate.com. Actually, this site claims to have been "serving inmates since 1998," yet the service had somehow passed me by until today's Daily Mail brought its full glory to my attention.

Meet-An-Inmate allows you to peruse … Read more

Facebook is working with prison officials to delete accounts that belong to inmates that are found to be updated while they are incarcerated.

The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation said the cooperative effort is designed to crackdown on inmates using social networking or cell phones to deliver threats or unwanted sexual advances.

"Access to social media allows inmates to circumvent our monitoring process and continue to engage in criminal activity," CDCR Secretary Matthew Cate said in a statement. "This new cooperation between law enforcement and Facebook will help protect the community and potentially avoid future victims.&… Read more

If you're looking for a weight loss boot camp, the Tent City Jail in Phoenix may be your solution. Controversial Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, who dubs himself "America's toughest sheriff," is providing the inmates there with a new amenity: cable television. But to watch their favorite shows, they're going to have to pedal.

Arpaio installed an energy-generating stationary bike (PDF) attached to a TV when he found that 50 percent of the inmates were overweight, many morbidly so. As long as an inmate is pedaling, the bike will produce 12 volts of energy--just enough to power a 19-inch tube TV. But if an inmate stops pedaling at a moderate speed, the TV shuts off.

Because inmates can't be forced to exercise, access to cable TV could provide incentive for them to do so. Female prisoners will test the program first, because they were more receptive to it, Arpaio says.

This isn't Arpaio's first attempt to trim inmates' waistlines. Some years back, he cut inmates' food intake from 3,000 calories to 2,500 calories. "You're too fat," CNN reported Arpaio as saying to the inmates. "I'm taking away your food because I'm trying to help you. I'm on a diet myself. You eat too much fat."

"America's toughest sheriff" hasn't always had an easy time implementing his standards, which have included assembling a female chain gang and making inmates pay $10 every time they need to see a nurse. Human-rights groups consider Tent City jail to be among the harshest in the nation, according to CNN, and numerous civil-rights lawsuits have been filed against the sheriff.

The program that Arpaio is calling "Pedal Vision" might be received with less criticism, though. Watching TV while serving time is a privilege, not a right, so inmates are choosing to take advantage of it. But what if every prisoner pedaled to produce energy? … Read more

Its name defines its purpose, and the simply titled Inmate Search allows you to look up a person's criminal history. We didn't get very far with the program, though, because a trial limitation required payment to view its findings.

The user interface features search capabilities that require an inmate's first and last name, but to fine tune your search, you can add the person's date of birth, gender, and state information. The program also lets you search by phone number, address, zip code, and even e-mail address. You can also select the categories you want to … Read more