My undergraduate newspaper, the Rice Thresher, had a recent article about students helping catch a guy who is charged with stealing a number of bicycles from around campus. Somewhat incredibly, the paper seems to have gotten an interview not only with students and campus police, but also the suspect himself. He offers some great locking advice:
"Tell students to quit putting the cable around the tire – [you can] just unscrew the tire," Baisden said. "Sometimes they'll just put it around the seat, and you can just take the seat off."
http://www.ricethresher.org/students-help-rupd-catch-serial-bike-thief-1.2148218
"His goal is to go into prison and get cleaned up and get off crack cocaine, and it hasn't worked out for him yet,"
What? Really? I'd heard of dudes wanting to go to jail for the winter, but for rehab purposes? Never before crossed my mind as an advantage of incarceration...
don't forget reddan, that brainchild is the issue of a crack cocaine addled mind. I think it is a good sign that you didn't think of it 
Another advantage of incarceration would be to keep you from riding a wierd looking two wheeled contraption across the state in less than forty hours.... Just say'n 
I wonder if they have weight loss programs in them there prisons. I need to drop about 50.
@edmonds: I hear that they do have free gym memberships. And impromptu, peer-driven interventions to encourage you to open yourself up to greater intimacy with your fellow inmates.
its like going to jail for cancer treatment: free healthcare!
'cept that once they actually do find cancer, they bounce you out of the system so they don't have to treat you. (True story, names, dates, ID numbers, I know the guy personally.) Murder, btw. (blog)
I gotta ask, what do body shops do with them?
I know more then a few people who have chosen not to post bond or avail themselves of the opportunity for bail (or even ROR), and have stayed in jail to escape their home environment and the pressure to do (hard) drugs. Observed this more here in Pgh then anywhere else I've lived.
However, I've never met anyone who intentionally, consciously, committed a crime to obtain treatment. Perhaps subconsciously, but who really knows what lurks in that morass?
I think the medical care in prison is probably like the food in prison: enough to keep you alive, but hardly intended to make you thrive.
County jail, State Prison and Federal Prison are all different residences.
As for food, can you google "nutraloaf"?
^ ugh.
They should let the prisoners grow their own food.
who was it that said we can measure the civility of a society by how it treats its criminals? Or am I bastardizing another quote? I still think it applies. I wouldn't feed people I hate the food they're given. I also wouldn't wish their health care on anybody.
Funny, but this even applies to some of the "criminals" and their crimes discussed on this board for me as well. While $500 fine for killing a law abiding man is totally unacceptable, it's not that I'd wish prison system food and health care (and treatment in general) on the guy either. Both punishments are completely inappropriate and irrelevant to the crime committed. There is no justice in either (at least by my standards, ymmv).
Greenfingers was an interesting movie about a garden/prison situation... I think it was based on a true story (and Clive Owen is hot).
Aside:
You never want to go to jail in country where there are people starving. The man who first told me that was wise and I trust him.
in Mali, if you get a prison sentence, your family has to arrange to feed you. There are no kitchens in the jails, and you can't make money, so you have no way of paying the guards to go get you food. If you end up in a jail really far from your family or your family has no money to pay a local cook to feed you... And I'm sure Mali isn't unique.
This is why corruption in impoverished countries is such a problem. Rock bottom is where you're starting from, there is no downhill to go, and if you don't take all the advantages you can find, rock bottom is where you'll stay.
In the USofA? We have no excuses.
