The Null Device

Prison administrators in China have found a new use for prison labour: putting inmates to work in multiplayer video games, generating in-game gold, which is then sold online for real money:

Liu says he was one of scores of prisoners forced to play online games to build up credits that prison guards would then trade for real money. The 54-year-old, a former prison guard who was jailed for three years in 2004 for "illegally petitioning" the central government about corruption in his hometown, reckons the operation was even more lucrative than the physical labour that prisoners were also forced to do.

"Prison bosses make more money forcing inmates to play games than they do forcing people to do manual labour," Liu told the Guardian. "There were 300 prisoners forced to play games. We worked 12-hour shifts in the camp. I heard them say they could earn 5,000-6,000rmb [£470-570] a day. We didn't see any of the money. The computers were never turned off."

¶ bizarre china corruption gold farming human rights mmorpgs prison videogames 0

A convicted drug dealer escaped from a prison in western Germany by climbing into a cardboard box and mailing himself out. And I thought that such things didn't happen outside of old animated cartoons.

¶ bizarre crime escapology germany mail prison 0

Arizona sherriff Joe Arpaio, who has won acclaim from law-and-order types and opprobrium from liberals by keeping prisoners in harsh conditions, is now bidding to add heiress, serial unlicensed hazardous driver and all-round waste of oxygen Paris Hilton to his chain gang:

"Instead of reducing for her sentence, which I feel is wrong, why not bring her over here? We can incarcerate her here. She can do her time over here."

Female inmates who are put on the chain gang work outside seven hours a day from early morning, six days a week in the desert surrounds.

The inmates wear traditional black-and-white striped uniforms and perform such tasks as creating fire breaks, removing trash, and even burial duty for vagrants.

Critics have condemned these housings, which can get blisteringly hot, as violations of human and constitutional rights.

(via M+N) ¶ celebrities joe arpaio law enforcement paris hilton prison schadenfreude usa 0

How to make a trucker cap out of garbage, or, more precisely, paper plates and beer can rings. I fully expect home-made trucker caps (though possibly pastel-coloured ones with glitter and googly eyes) to start appearing at Architecture in Helsinki gigs, if not at the actual merch stall.

Also on the same site: how to make pruno; or, more precisely, how to turn perfectly good fresh fruit into foul, toxic rocket fuel, prison-style. (via jwz)

¶ diy hipsters prison trucker hats 1

Norwegian Black Metal legend Varg "Count Grishnackh" Vikernes, almost a decade into a 21-year prison term for murder and arson, was arrested driving a stolen car. The former Burzum frontman stole the car at gunpoint whilst on day leave from his minimum-security prison, and drove towards Oslo. It is not clear what he planned to accomplish.

¶ black metal crime norway prison varg vikernes 0

Disgraced right-wing politician and larrikin-wowser hybrid Pauline Hanson will need protection in prison, as the large Aboriginal populations behind bars hadn't forgotten her anti-Aboriginal rhetoric, a Democrat senator has said.

¶ australia bigotry pauline hanson politics prison schadenfreude 0

The World's Leading Nation: In the US, 3% of the population are in gaol or on probation; most of these are convicted of drug-related crimes. Perhaps in a few years' time, Howard's Australia will end up following this lead, with massive prison cities in the desert housing hundreds of thousands of inmates, mostly those on the wrong side of morality legislation. (via rotten.com)

¶ crime prison the long siege usa war on drugs 0