Prison Breakdown

Professor Beck Strah and Producer Brit talk about Beck’s various jobs, Derek Chauvin news, and then they review the first episode of Prison Break from 2005 in which they discuss prison stores, murdering the vice president’s brother, conjugal visits, Stacy Keach, trash fires, gifts made with prison labor, dated effects, and Alien: Romulus (2024)

Professor Beck Strah and Producer Brit ask is Eric the meat of our sandwich?, the fish sloppy joe challenge, the Stateville Correctional Center getting depopulated due to bad conditions, swimming the Alcatraz escape route, the big weird time out, the would-be escapees of the Battle of Alcatraz, The Battle of Alcatraz: the escape attempt, the officer resistance, and what went wrong. They also discu...

Professors Eric Bronson and Beck Strah discuss energy drinks, Warheads, cruel and unusual lack of air conditioning in Texas prisons, the Birdman of Alcatraz, Al Capone, Machine Gun Kelly, Charles Manson’s Music, Doc Barker, Creepy Karpis, felons in marketing, The Jail: Managing the Underclass in American Society by John Keith Irwin, and The Haunting of Alcatraz (2020).

Professors Beck Strah and Eric Bronson discuss an update to the story of Christopher Dunn, convicting the right person vs. convicting some person, the Alcatraz lighthouse, the discovery of Alcatraz, Millard [Mallard] Fillmore, the problems with making a wooden prison, Alcatraz’s relatively small capacity, the prison’s conditions and privileges, the economics of Alcatraz, the 1969 Indigenous Alcatr...

Today Professors Eric Bronson and Beck Strah discuss a Missouri prison ignoring a court order to release a wrongly-convicted inmate, the story of the Mecklenburg Six; six death row inmates who escaped a Virginia prison, keeping snakes as pets, prison control rooms, eating your way to a better sentence, bombs as escape mechanisms, Life as a Jailer: Through the Officers Eyes by Capt. Joe DeFranco an...

Today Professors Eric Bronson and Beck Strah discuss a Wisconsin warden charged with the deaths of inmates, incarcerated former LEOs and COs, therapy through magic, interrupting division via magic, the limitations of magic in real life interventions, magic as an introduction to cognitive behavioral therapy, Magic the Gathering in prison, magician criminals, and Derek DelGuado’s In and Of Itself (2...

Profs Beck Strah and Eric Bronson discuss Trump’s First Step Act, halfway houses and home confinement, prison magic in media, Harry Houdini and why there’s no movie about him, Criss Angel, David Blaine, magic as rehabilitation, the question magicians get most from inmates, OG (2018) and Madeline Sackler.

Profs Eric Bronson and Beck Strah discuss wrongful incarceration compensation, the Pennsylvania Model, solitary and recidivism, solitary and incapacitation, alternative options for solitary, solitary as a means of gang separation, individual inmate experiences in solitary, virtual reality in solitary, and Ricky Stanicky (2024).

Profs Eric Bronson and Beck Strah interview Lt. Joshua Kennedy of West Warwick Police Department and formerly of Rhode Island Department of Corrections. Also discussed are Prison Land: Mapping Carceral Power across Neoliberal America by Brett Story (2019) and Madea Goes to Jail (2009).

Profs Eric Bronson and Beck Strah discuss Abiding Citizen (2009) and Bronson (2008) with Producer Brit.

Profs Eric Bronson and Beck Strah discuss Cool Hand Luke (1967) and Life (1999) with Producer Brit.

Profs Beck Strah and Eric Bronson discuss harmful chemicals in prison water, foam parties, Charles Bronson, the cost of solitary confinement, access to services in solitary, international views on solitary, racial disparities in solitary, staffing for solitary, therapy for solitary individuals, euphemisms, mental health and solitary, and Ernest Goes to Jail (1990).

Profs Beck Strah and Eric Bronson discuss Groundhog Day, Law Abiding Citizen (2009), cruise reviews, the state incentives behind pay to stay jails, the two-tiered system of criminal justice, reward structures in prison, jail as rehabilitation vs jail as punishment, justification for pay to stay, pay to stay jail advertising, Mike Lindell, pivoting away from pay to stay, unemployment rates and inca...

Profs Bronson and Strah discuss an Australian manhunt for a man released on error, Crocodile Dundee, IHOP pancake eating contests, international felon disenfranchisement, disenfranchisement and white privilege, recidivism and re-enfranchisement, million dollar blocks, permanent disenfranchisement, and How to Be a Serial Killer (2008).

Profs Eric Bronson and Beck Strah discuss Danny Masterson getting repeatedly beaten in prison, prison democracy, differing classes of vote restriction, racial and sex disparities in felon disenfranchisement, Florida being disappointing, felon disenfranchisement as an election tool, taxation without representation, labeling theory, non-voter databases, In with the Devil: a Fallen Hero, a Serial Kil...

Profs Beck Strah and Eric Bronson discuss circus people, an example sentencing for carceral fentanyl trafficking, conflict with incarcerated romantic partners, leaving enough space for Jesus, gender and relationship status in relation to emotional health, establishing meaningful relationships under incarceration, conjugal visits, same-sex relationships, and Caged Heat 3000 (1995).

Profs. Beck Strah and Eric Bronson discuss weather, the podcast not being explicit enough, a Rhode Island deputy shooting a sheriff, sally ports, Bronson taking a student group to Louisiana, Steven Seagal Lawman, Joe Arpaio, family visitation, the Angola Prison Rodeo, conjugal visits, prison phone calls, the social capital of community connections, the benefits of building familial relationships f...

Profs. Eric Bronson and Beck Strah discuss Jackson, MS prisoner graves, gang tattoos, retribution tattoos, the symbology of prison ink, bitcoin, Canadian subsidised prison tatts, police and jury profiling of people with prison tattoos, and Caged Heat (1974)

Professors Beck Strah and Eric Bronson discuss Sing Sing Correctional Facility, its inmate services, famous guests, sports teams, and fun facts. Topics also covered include the death penalty, the release of the former Olympian known as Blade Runner, and Holiday in Handcuffs (2006).

Professors Beck Strah and Eric Bronson interview their students about their visit to RHDC John J. Moran Medium Security Facility and Anthony P. Travisono Intake Service Center, and also discuss Dick Durbin & Chuck Grassley's response to healthcare in the Federal Bureau of Prisons, prison tour hostage situations, Let's Go to Prison (2006), and if Die Hard is a Christmas movie.

Professors Beck Strah and Eric Bronson discuss: updates on the georgia prison break, the last prison barge closing, Derek Chauvin shivving, the RIDC Intake Service Center, the Gloria McDonald Women's Facility, the Donald Price Medium Security Facility, overtime in corrections, and Baywatch (2017)

Professors Eric Bronson and Beck Strah discuss the numerous facilities of RIDC

Professors Eric Bronson and Beck Strah continue discussing contraband in prisons

Professors Eric Bronson and Beck Strah discuss contraband in prisons

Professors (and former COs) Eric Bronson and Beck Strah discuss prison food, nutraloaf, and food justice.