Over the last three years, South Carolina prison officials have brought more than 400 disciplinary cases against inmates for "social networking," the Electronic Frontier Foundation reports. Penalties in such cases are exorbitant, including time in solitary confinement as well as deprivation of visitation and telephone…
A Hawaii man was sentenced to a year of probation and a $200 fine for making his son walk one mile home from school as punishment.
A high school in Mesa, Arizona, is catching some flak online for giving two students caught fighting a choice between being suspended for nine days or spending part of the day holding hands in full view of their classmates.
A pair of Wisconsin parents took a decidedly modern approach toward punishing their daughter when she misbehaved recently: They confiscated her phone and used it to take several photos of themselves doing silly faces, which they subsequently uploaded to her Facebook page.
There is a longstanding and serious debate over whether solitary confinement is, in and of itself, torture. Countless prisoners who've experienced it have said that isolation is worse than any form of physical torture. A new Amnesty report on isolation in California's prisons should make any rational person queasy…
Back in 2009, Charles Cleveland Nowden was busted at a Fort Worth movie theater for trying to purchase a lethal junk-food combo meal—two hot dogs, two cokes, and popcorn—with a counterfeit $20. This week, he received an 80-year prison sentence. Fort Worth's snack community is safe again!
Former hedge fund heavyweight Raj Rajaratnam will do a dime and change in federal prison for his insider trading conviction.
Remember meth-addled Geraldo Martinez, who killed a cat by throwing it out of a seventh-story window after having sex with it? He pleaded guilty to animal torture and received a two-year sentence. The judge dismissed a bestiality charge, because why?
Fourteen-year-old Brian Thompson was handcuffed, placed in a cop car, and suspended from school for 10 days, all because he ran down the sidelines at half-time during a football game while wearing a banana costume. At least he wasn't arrested!
While convicted double murderer Duane Buck's guilt is not in question, his death penalty sentence is. So in a last-minute measure — Buck had already eaten his last meal — his execution was stayed, because during his sentencing hearing the prosecution had a psychologist testify that black people are more likely to…
Joran van der Sloot, the longtime main suspect in the 2005 disappearance of American student Natalee Holloway in Aruba, has been officially charged with murder in the death of Stephany Flores, who was murdered in Peru last year.
Polygamist leader and statutory rapist Warren Jeffs has been sentenced to life in prison for sexual assaulting a 12- and 14-year-old as part of a "spiritual marriage." A hoax crime tip led to a raid on Jeffs' Texas compound in 2008; the fallout, however, has been very real.
Norwegian mass-murderer Anders Breivik could wind up doing time at Halden Fengsel, multiple news outlets claim, which calls itself a maximum-security prison, but looks more like a cross between an IKEA and college dorm. Take a tour of its Banksy-like wall murals, climbing walls, and recording studios in this video.…
Watch out, people who tweet made-up stuff on Twitter (i.e. everyone on Twitter). A Malaysian guy is being forced to tweet an apology 100 times to the magazine company he defamed in a tweet.
Imagine blowing through a stop sign, then getting Tasered eight times by cops for it? That's what happened to 43-year-old Allen Kephart in in Blue Jay, California this week. A San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department spokeswoman, Cindy Bachman, told the Los Angeles Times that Kephart was pulled over and "became…
A lot of people use YouTube to upload original content of adorable babies. But a lot of people use it to post copyright-violating clips of TV shows and Lady Gaga videos. Now, YouTube copyright violators will be sentenced to "copyright school."
Everyone knows that the only country that loves killing its own citizens more than the U.S. is China. But on Friday, the Chinese decided it loved killing its citizens just a little bit less: The government "ruled out" the death penalty as a punishment for thirteen "economic" and "nonviolent" offenses, including …
Though Governor Rick Perry announced new movie-luring tax incentives at Robert Rodriguez's film studios in Austin last year, Rodriguez's film Machete has now been denied those rebates, seemingly because it "portray[ed] Texans or Texas in a negative fashion." Censorship!
A new study indicates that gay teens receive harsher punishments than straight teens for the same crimes—despite engaging in less violent behavior overall. But at least they can finally get married and join the military! Oh. Wait.
17-year-old Luke Angel, of Bedfordshire, told Britain's Sky News that he has a lifetime ban from America for sending an email to President Obama calling him a pussy and other "abusive and threatening language", after seeing a documentary about 9/11.
