If you're looking to up the ante on the legitimate fear factor of your Halloween, try this on for size -- a jail in Norwalk is going to transport its inmates elsewhere this October 31, and deck the prison out as a haunted house. Deputy Frank Barragan told the Huffington Post that the Norwalk Sheriff's Station and the Lakewood Station will be filled with your typical Halloween characters: ghosts, goblins, witches and vampires. more ›

A manhunt launched five days ago to find two young Ventura County inmates who broke free from their labor crew in the Hollywood Hills has concluded with the pair's apprehension. Pablo Ladislow Ontaneda, 18, and Christopher Ochoa, 19, were located last night to a home in Jurupa, according to NBCLosAngeles. more ›

Just two days after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that California were indeed overcrowded and ordered the state to reduce its 140,000+ inmate population by about 33,000, a critical error was made and the blame is being placed squarely on a computer. California prison officials mistakenly released an estimated 450 inmates with "a high risk for violence" as unsupervised parolees in a program meant to ease overcrowding, according to the state's inspector general, reported the LA Times. more ›

Forward thinking inmates have been running a *72 telephone scam that tricks a victim into unwittingly forwarding calls from their number resulting in collect fees and other charges, according to a Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department press release. more ›

The prison private sector is big business. So big, in fact, California will spend $60 million a year for three years to send 2,600 prisoners to GEO Group Inc.'s facility in Michigan, according to Neon Tommy's Paresh Dave. more ›

Interesting fact, via the Disaster Accountability Blog, about how state budget woes and a court order to lower prison population could affect firefighting: According to a California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation press release, “there are 2,245 adult inmates and 53 Division of Juvenile Justice youth deployed to fires statewide, including Los Angeles, Riverside, and 15 other counties,” under the supervision of “187 correctional officers and supervisors. more ›

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Why do all these prisoners love our governor? Because in his budget cuts that were released today, it proposes just that -- an early release for 22,000 low-risk inmates. "The governor says the cuts are necessary to erase a $14 billion revenue shortfall over the next 18 months. Schwarzenegger's new budget would spend 3 percent less than the one he signed last summer," according to the AP. more ›

There are 14,000 firefighters our there right now helping protecting us. 3,000 of them are prison inmates who began working the front lines yesterday.A spokesman for the corrections department says it's close to the most the state has ever used. The inmates go through a four-week training program. They must be physically fit, have no history of violent crime and have between four months to three years remaining on their sentences. They're paid $1... more ›