Word: prisoners
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
When it comes to college students acting like fools, Vayner was just the beginning. This year alone, there was the candidate for class president at Princeton accused of setting a squirrel on fire; the University of Pennsylvania grad student found to be commuting to class from prison; the Skull and Bonesman arrested for burning an American flag still attached to a New Haven home. For the sake of all the moms and dads reading this, we won’t even get into kitchen sex at Brown, testes flambé at Cornell, or one fine arts major?...
...Despite the prison prohibition forbidding for-profit sale of artwork, many of the pieces sold by Ed Mead on his prisonart.org web site come from Texas, many of them panos or "handkerchief" art, a medium favored by Latino prisoners in the Southwest who do intricate ink drawings on squares of ripped sheets and other material. Mead makes copies of the works, scans and posts them on his website, charging a small commission fee if they sell. He says he rejects any art that he considers racist, sexist or homophobic and does not sell pieces by notorious killers. Recently, he refused...
...Operating out of San Francisco, Mead, who served 18 years in Washington State for crimes committed in the '70s as a member of the revolutionary group George Jackson Brigade, is now a prison-reform activist. He says art gives prisoners a sense of themselves, raises their self-esteem and keeps them busy. Cornyn's bill, he adds, "is an attempt to pass another 'Son of Sam' law," referring to the 1971 New York state law aimed at blocking potential book profits for notorious criminals like "Son of Sam" killer David Berkowitz. The U.S. Supreme Court overturned...
...Even if the bill does pass, the trade will continue, Bohannon insists: "If they shut it down, they will force it underground." Mead agrees, and notes that despite rules at California's maximum security Pelican Bay prison limiting prisoners' access to artist materials, art flourishes; prisoners scrape the colors from magazine ads and use manila envelopes as canvases. Donny Johnson, a well-known Pelican Bay artist, dissolves M&M candy for his colors and uses a paintbrush made from his own hair...
...most notorious prison art, Kahan says, only inspires more pain and horror for the victims. In April, Denise Johnson and Victoria Snider, whose husband and sister, respectively, were killed in 2002 by the Beltway Sniper, Lee Boyd Malvo, were shocked when they learned that his sketch of Osama bin Laden was for sale on murderauction.com. The starting bid was $399, but so far the Canadian seller nicknamed "Redrum" - murder spelled backwards - has yet to sell the crudely drawn portrait. "It would be worthless without Malvo's name on it," Kahan says. "It is profit from ill-gotten notoriety...