The Truth is Stranger than Prison
More than two-thirds of the people housed here have not yet been convicted of a crime.
What are jails?
The Constitutional Amendment prohibiting cruel and unusual punishment.
What is the 8th?
An inmate skilled in legal matters.
What is a jailhouse lawyer?
The most secure, and most costly, prison in the U.S. is located in this Colorado city.
What is Florence?
The agency responsible for the supervision of federal inmates and prisoners.
What is the Bureau of Prisons (BOP)?
What are colleges?
The percentage of the jail population comprised of women (rounded to the nearest 5)
What is 15?
The custody classification that describes the typical inmate in the state prison system.
What is a medium-custody inmate?
The year in which the Prison Litigation Reform Act and the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act were passed.
What is 1996?
Where federal prisoners were housed before 1906.
What are state prisons?
On April 24, 2026, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) announced the reinstatement of this method of execution for federal death row inmates.
What is the firing squad?
The number of U.S. states that currently authorize the death penalty as punishment for a capital offense.
What is 27?
A convicted inmate who is housed in a local jail because of a lack of bed space in a state or federal prison.
What is a "holdback" inmate?
The state in which the case against executing child rapists originated?
What is Louisiana?
The name given to a minimum security facility in the federal prison system.
What is a Federal Prison Camp (FPC)?
More than 70 million people in the U.S. today are living with the loss of some rights as a result of this.
What is a felony conviction?
The average age of individuals housed in U.S. prisons.
What is 39?
An individual who commits another crime after being released from a prison sentence.
What is a recidivist?
The year in which the death penalty was reinstated following the decision in Gregg vs Georgia.
What is 1976?
The federal prison system profits from the sale of inmate-produced goods and services in this prison industry system.
What is UNICOR?
Before becoming a pioneer in parole, Samuel Howe was the founding director of a school for this special population.
What is the blind?
The number of death sentences commuted to life following the 1972 decision in Furman vs Georgia?
What is 629?
The word that describes a person who is legally declared innocent and released after being convicted of a capital offense and sentenced to death.
What is exonerated?
The first state to adopt an official, state-supported, system of parole.
What is New York?
The location of the first federal prison (and home of the oldest continuously operating installation of the U.S. military west of the Mississippi River).
What is Fort Leavenworth?