How to boil water in prison
Ex jewel thief Larry Lawton explains how you boil water in prison. This channel is pretty amazing to be honest.
Prison Tech
Whoa, I had no idea that transparent consumer electronics have some relation to prison technology. I’ve always enjoyed “clear” things — that is, things that I can see through so I know how it works — and it turns out there was a practical use for this in prisons in order to cut down on contraband and dangers to prisoners and staff.
Making the 'Goodfellas' prison sauce
I've always wondered how this sauce would taste in real life. In the movie, it sure sounded really delicious and now seeing somebody actually make the sauce I am pretty sure it is delicious.
The fight against telecoms price gouging prisoners
There's a really great longform article written by Colin Lecher over at The Verge that talks about the way telecoms have screwed prisoners with extravagant chargers for calls made to the outside world.
As you scroll down the article, there's a timer that appears on the lefthand side of the page that acts very much like a timer these telephone companies would use to calculate how much a phone call from inside the prison costs. Most often than not, these included flat rates just to start the call, then pretty expensive per-minute rates thereafter. It's a way to price-gouge those that the majority of society tends to lock away and forget.
But the article goes quite in depth into how one grandmother of a prisoner fought the system and temporarily won, causing telephone contractors in bed with prisons to lower their rates to something at least comparable to the outside world. Unfortunately, the prison system fought back and essentially forced the FCC to backpedal on their decision to cap per-minute rates at 20 cents. Now, some states have gone back to their old ways, charging prisoners exuberant fees just to talk to family and friends. For now, it's legal, but hopefully this changes permanently soon.