Strange Prison Facts

There is a free way to find online records for potential prisoners at no cost. It's helpful for getting in touch with a prisoner's family.

11% of the nation's prison population is receiving some kind of treatment for drug abuse.

458,000 of the currently incarcerated 2.3 million (about 20%), were under the influence of alcohol or drugs when the crime was committed or are incarcerated due to drug violations, like selling or buying drugs.

85 percent of the estimated 2.3 million prison inmates have had or still do some kind of serious drug abuse history

Contracts guarantee that prison occupancy rates will stay at or above a specified level, also known as "lockup quotas". If occupancy rates are not fulfilled, the government pays for the empty beds.

Just two companies, Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) and The GEO Group, made $3.3B in 2012, 75% of the private prison industry.

Private prisons bring in roughly $3 Billion in revenue each year with over half of this income coming from the facilitation of undocumented immigrants.

Many large companies such as Boeing, McDonalds, Victoria's Secret, and Starbucks outsource to prisons to take advantage of the low labor costs.

Solitary confinement, widely used in American prisons, is regarded internationally as torture.

There is a program that pairs abused, neglected or abandoned dogs with prison inmates for the rehabilitation of the dogs and the inmates.

The opening song sung by prisoners in “O Brother, Where Art Thou” was a recording of actual prisoners in 1959, and one of the prisoners was tracked down and paid 40 years later.

There is a “three generations of punishment” sentence in North Korea. This means a person would be sent to the camp along with that person’s entire family and two subsequent generations of family members would be born in prison and live their entire lives there.

Louisiana is the prison capital of the world – 1 out of every 86 adults is behind bars, which is the highest rate in the world.

Companies in America will outsource call center duties to prisons where prisoners can make up to about 90¢ per hour handling calls.

Some prisons serve misbehaving inmates a one-dish meal called “nutriloaf”, which was specifically designed to be bland, flavorless, and unappealing.

Brazilian prisons offer to reduce the sentences of their prisoners by 4 days (up to 48 days/year) for every book they read and write a report on.

World famous chef Gordon Ramsay challenged a prison cook to an onion cutting competition. The inmate won. Ramsay immediately offered him a job at one of his restaurants upon his release

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, creator of Sherlock Holmes, helped get two falsely accused men out of prison after solving their previously closed cases.

A man who was sentenced to 30 years in prison for shooting with intent to kill and robbery requested that his sentence was extended to 33 years, to match Larry Bird's NBA jersey number. The request was granted.

Corrections (which include prisons, jails, probation, and parole) costed the U.S. taxpayers around $74 billion in 2007.