#Tucker Prison Farm

[don-lichterman]

On The Rampage, Don Lichterman, Cotton Pickin, Parchman Farm, Parchman Prison, Woman's Week, 9/11, Looking Old, Crack Cocaine, Opioids, Tucker Carlson & God

[lovelyheart502]

The Tucker Telephone was a cruel torture device used in the 1960s at Tucker State Prison Farm in Arkansas. It was made from an old crank telephone and was used to punish prisoners in a painful and brutal way.

Guards would attach wires from the telephone to a prisoner’s fingers and genitals. Then, they would crank the phone to send an electric shock through the prisoner’s body, causing intense pain. The worst shocks were called "long-distance calls," a sick joke among the guards.

The Tucker Telephone was meant to control and punish prisoners, leaving many with serious physical and psychological damage. Eventually, word got out about the torture, leading to investigations and public outrage. The device was banned, but it remains a haunting example of the cruelty that existed in the prison system at the time.

[theweirdspacejellyfish]

weird af books

get in my swamp by g m fairy

summary: when liona stumbles upon beck, the ogres, trap and becomes his prisoner, shes determined to get away. but it doesnt take long for things to start heating up between the two. beck is trying to protect her, and liona cant help her bodys reaction to the buff green monster. the lines between captive and captor become blurry, and the passion becomes a raging fire neither of them put out

bad beehavior by g m fairy- bee movie romance

summary: a pollinator and a florist: a love that blooms across the galaxy. baryx embarks on a journey through the universe to repopulate his kind and save the planet earth. when he arrives, he takes on his smaller form, and a human male tries to swat him, almost killing him. jannessa, a sweet and gentle floriest, rescues him and nurtures him back to health. as baryx spends more time with her, he reveals his true identity, all while discovering new and forbidden emotions. torn between duty and desire, bee, as jannessa likes to call him, must choose: fulfill his mission or embrace a forbidden love with the woman who showed him the true meaning of passion beyond worlds

stuffed by sylvia morrow

summary: she thought she'd never be able to find a lover, but hes been in her bed for years. anime obsessed anne might be a fictophiliac, or she might just hate touch so much she'll never have sex. she doesnt really care about the difference as long as she has her favorite pillow to grind against when she needs physical relief. anne's favorite pillow is more than just a feather filled cotton sack -- hes alive but no one knows it. hot, pulsing magic weaves between his fibers each time she touchs him. all he wants is to be the man anne needs. soft. moldable. and ready to cater to her every desire. but when he has enough magic to become a man, will anne accept his eager touch? can flesh and fabric come together in erotic bliss? will more than one of them end up fully stuffed?

squeak by vera valentine

summary: a dedicated art student at her local community college, poppy practically lives inside her sketchbook. drawn to the distracted crowds of the local zoo, her planned day of anonymous figure-sketching is interrupted by the charming sebastian - and his brooding, borderline-rude friend keane. little does she know the two have a twisted secret that defies imagination - and the pressure on both of them is increasing by the day. as an intricate plan takes shape to secure their freedom, the twists and turns they face - and a pair of very intriguing knots- might just unwittingly tie poppy to both of them, forever

wet hot allosaurus by lola faust

morning glory milking farm by c m nascosta

frisky the snowman by lauren biel

the deviled egg made me do it by holly wilde

unhinged by vera valentine

bagged by the groceries! by fannie tucker

triceratops and bottoms by lola faust

how stego got his groove back by lola faust

don juan velociraptor by lola faust

all i want for christmas is utahraptor by lola faust

im in love with mothman by paige lavoie

im engaged to mothman by paige lavoie

railed by the easter bunny by dalia davies

railed by the krampus by dalia davies

[realtorjamier]

Making Your Military Move: Neighborhoods Near Military Stations!

The DMV area is home to several major military bases – Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines – with many on-base housing options. However, for those families who choose to live off-base, there are loads of alternatives. Here’s a brief overview of some of the areas that surround Andrews Airforce Base, Fort Belvoir, and Fort Meade. 

And when it is time to relocate, CENTURY 21 Redwood Realty has more than 150 military-certified relocation agents who can help you buy, sell or rent. Not only will these professionals guide you through the entire process, they know how to help you get the most financial gain from your move.

Joint Base Andrews spans over 4,000 acres in Prince George’s County, Md., and has an on-base residential property population of approximately 2,600 people. 

Greater Upper Marlboro

Located in Prince George’s County, Greater Upper Marlboro (the county seat) has a population of around 20,000 people, but the census divides the area into several smaller designated places. The median home value is $376,400.

This area is a mix of urban and rural. The town itself is small and quaint. Family entertainment includes:

Watkins Regional Park with an authentic, hand-carved and restored turn-of-the-century carousel, miniature train ride, putt-putt golf, a playground, and camping;

Six Flags America (nearby), a theme park with more than 100 rides, games, shows, and attractions;

Montpelier Farms, a working farm featuring activities, festivals, and a farm market.

Clinton

With a population of 38,760 at the time of the 2020 census, Clinton is home to the Surratt House Museum, a Maryland-National Capital Park, and Planning Commission facility. Built in 1852 as a middle-class farmhouse, its interesting ties to John Wilkes Booth make it doubly worth a tour.

Oxon Hill

Named for a colonial 18th-century manor home overlooking the Potomac River, Oxon Hill had a population of 18,791 at the time of the 2020 census. The original manor house burned down, but a large neo-Georgian-style home was built in its place in 1929 and is owned by the Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission and is used for special events.

Oxon Hill is also the location of the National Harbor development, a large mixed-use community with residential units, hotel rooms, retail space, upscale dining, and entertainment. The MGM National Harbor Resort Casino is located at the entrance of this development.

Oxon Hill’s family fun includes the Oxon Cove Farm educational facility and the Henson Creek hiker-biker trail.

Other attractions in nearby Fort Washington include:

Rosecroft Raceway (“the Raceway by the Beltway”) which offers harness horse racing;

The Henson Creek Golf Course;

The Tucker Road Athletic Complex with swimming and ice skating.

Fort Belvoir is located in Fairfax County, Va., halfway between Washington, D.C., and Richmond, Va., making it ideal for tourists who are interested in history as it is close to national parks, museums, monuments, and more. For those who work at Fort Belvoir but choose to live off base, Burke, Lorton, and Alexandria are popular choices.

Burke and Lorton, Va.

The 2020 census lists Lorton as having a population of 19,844. The median home value at that time was $463,767. 

Burke’s 2020 census shows a population of 42,806. The median home value in Burke is $537,032.

The Lorton VRE station is served by the VRE Fredericksburg Line which runs between the city of Fredericksburg to the south and Washington’s Union Station to the north.

The Lorton Amtrack station is the northern terminal for Amtrak’s Auto Train which runs between this station and the Sanford station in Sanford, Florida.

Special attractions include the 218-acre Burke Lake and Lorton’s Workhouse Arts Center (a former prison!) which provides 300 performances, 12 gallery spaces, hundreds of classes, and several large-scale community events. 

Alexandria

According to the 2020 census, Alexandria’s population was 160,146 — the sixth largest city in Virginia. The median home value at that time was $545,000.

Historic Alexandria is perfect for those who appreciate the arts, culture, outdoor activities, and entertainment. 

Nearby George Washington’s Mount Vernon is the most visited historic home in the U.S., but there are also so many other historic sites here, as well as an abundance of restaurants, wineries, breweries, entertainment, and cultural events.

Located between Washington and Baltimore, Fort Meade is located in Anne Arundel County, Md. Surrounding neighborhoods include the communities of Odenton, Laurel, and Columbia.

Odenton

According to the 2020 census, Odenton’s population was 42,947. The median home value at that time was $337,700. 

Odenton’s school system is ranked above average, and Bowie State University and Anne Arundel Community College are both nearby. Odenton offers natural entertainment in the form of parks. The Patuxent Research Refuge is nearby and offers fishing, wildlife observation, hiking, and biking.

Because Odenton is located just 19 miles from Baltimore and 15 miles from Annapolis, there’s also great proximity to historic sites, diverse dining venues and entertainment, but Odenton also has four main shopping centers as well as an ice rink, golf center, go-kart raceway, athletic club, and more. The Odenton MARC station makes this a great place for commuters to live. 

Laurel

Located in northern Prince George’s County, Laurel’s population was reported as 42,947 in 2020 and the median home value was $337,700.   

The City of Laurel’s Department of Parks and Recreation maintains more than 200 acres of parkland (19 park sites) which includes playgrounds, pavilions, athletic fields, trails, tennis courts, pools, basketball courts, and more. 

A couple of unique highlights located in Laurel include:

The Maryland Jockey Club, known for world-class Thoroughbred horse racing.

Dinosaur Park, a fenced area where visitors can join paleontologists in searching for early Cretaceous (145 to 66 million years ago) fossils.

Columbia

At the time of the 2020 census, Columbia’s population was 104,681. The median home price was $385,900.

Located in Howard County, this planned community opened in 1967 and consists of 10 self-contained villages that were designed to enhance its residents’ quality of life in terms of human values (attempting to eliminate racial, religious and class segregation), rather than economics, and engineering. 

Lakes Kittamaqundi and Centennial offer boating and fishing. The Rocky Gorge Reservoir offers hiking, horseback riding, and fishing.

The public schools are rated highly, and Columbia consistently earns a spot in Money Magazine’s “Best Places to Live in the U.S.” list, ranking first place in 2016.

If you’re in the military and it’s time to move, it’s important to find an agent who not only knows the neighborhoods around each military station, but according to CENTURY 21 Redwood Realty’s Director of Relocation Services, Tina Bodolosky, it’s also advantageous to work with a real estate professional who is trained specifically to help members of the military.

The Military Relocation Professional (MRP) certification program educates REALTORS® about working with service members and their families as well as veterans to find housing solutions that best suit their needs. They can also help you take full advantage of available benefits and support.

One such benefit, says Tina: “We offer cash back programs of up to $8,000 when you buy or sell a home through our Navy Federal Realty Plus or Military Rewards programs and utilize one of our background checked and military relocation certified agents.”

[ledenews]

The 'Greenhouse Getaway' - The 1992 Escape from the W.Va. Penitentiary - Part One

PREVIOUS ESCAPES There were countless escapes from the West Virginia Penitentiary.  Some means of escape were going over the tall walls with rope ladders, digging under the walls burrowed ten feet deep into the earth, through the Wagon Gates, dressed as women, one was even buried underneath a pile of stinky garbage in the outgoing garbage truck. One inmate attempted a creative escape.  He fashioned a hot air balloon out of mattress covers and took it to the top of the Industry Building. His escape was not successful as he couldn’t get it airborne. His attempt, as well has his spirit, deflated. While the inmates supplied the labor to build the gothic like architecture of the penitentiary from 1866 to 1870, there were 103 escapes and forty-six were never captured. According to The Tour at the West Virginia Penitentiary, there were 538 escapes from 1960 to 1995. In the late 60’s, prisoners who escaped were required to wear gray shirt and gray pants upon their return. The shirt had two white patches on front and one white patch on back that measured twelve by eighteen inches. The purpose of the patches was so Correctional Officers in the towers could easily spot them and watch them carefully. When a new inmate asked what the patches meant, he was told that those inmates were E.T.’s. Inmates with ‘escape tendencies’.  Camp Fair Chance, the 212-acre prison farm, had 160 inmates supervised by only four Correctional Officers. Since the escapes occurred frequently and were so easy, the farm was mocked as “Camp Sure Chance.” Those who did escape from Camp Fair Chance were rebuked by the other inmates who successfully escaped from the penitentiary. The Camp Fair Chance evaders were told, “You didn’t escape, you just walked off. You are a ‘walk-off’.” There were many other notable escapes but one fascinating one was perpetrated by Fred Hamilton, Tomie Mollohan, and David Williams.  All three inmates were convicted of murder and serving life sentences. Hamilton remains incarcerated today in the state's only maximum-security facility. FRED HAMILTON Frederick Dean Hamilton was born on January 22, 1958 in Greenfield, Ohio. As a young man, he excelled athletically. During Fred’s senior year of high school, he was ranked the third best golfer in the state of Ohio. Guy Sivert, the golf coach for Davis and Elkins College, recruited him on a full scholarship.  Fred’s future was bright. Blessed with athletic talent and a gregarious, popular young man in college, Fred appeared as if he had a perfect life.  Something snapped within him when he was nineteen years-old and he dropped out of college and began committing crimes. During his malicious six-week stint, Fred kidnapped car salesman Robert Kamauff of Cumberland, Maryland. He didn’t harm Kamauff and eventually released him on a deserted Maryland road.  Fred was arrested on October 12, 1978 for armed robbery and kidnapping when a stolen orange corvette was found in front of his house. He was initially housed in the Randolph County Jail. Two days later, Fred was taken to the Tucker County Jail by West Virginia State Trooper Bruce Brown. At the Parson, West Virginia jailhouse, Fred began devising a plan on how to escape and became unruly. Another State Trooper, Corporal Marshall Davisson stepped in to assist Trooper Brown in subduing the cantankerous young man. Fred pushed Trooper Brown aside and quickly snatched Trooper Davissons’ .357 caliber handgun from his holster. Both officers immediately grabbed Fred and two shots rang out. The first shot fired struck Corporal Davisson’s metal belt buckle and didn’t injure him. The second shot Fred fired hit Trooper Brown in the chest causing him to stagger to the nearby stoop where he collapsed. Four hours later, he breathed his last breath. When Tucker County Sheriff Darl Pine saw the commotion, he fired at Fred and struck him in the leg. Once Fred was hit, he stopped fighting and surrendered to them.  In a matter of several minutes, Fred’s bright future drastically dimmed. Once a gregarious, likable college student, now a convicted cop killer. Fred’s impulsive violent choice robbed Trooper Brown, a young man only 25 years old of his future.  Fred had previously escaped from the penitentiary in July 1984 while being medically treated at the Reynolds Memorial Hospital in Glen Dale, West Virginia.  When he exited the restroom in the prison ward of the hospital, he snatched a walkie-talkie from a correctional officer and absconded down a fire escape. He hid along Little Grave Creek and then surrendered to law enforcement authorities three days later. Inmate #3568074, Frederick Dean Hamilton, is now incarcerated at Mount Olive Correctional Complex in Montgomery, West Virginia. Mollohan's sentence was extended, of course, following the 1992 escape, and he later died behind bars. TOMIE MOLLOHAN Tomie Lee Mollohan was born in Miami, Florida on March 10, 1942 and eventually traveled up north to the Mountain State of West Virginia. He earned money by doing odd jobs for people and had a mechanical aptitude to fix things. Unfortunately, Tomie became tired of making a meager living and made a tragic choice. While milling around in Brounland, West Virginia, a small unincorporated town just thirteen miles southwest of Charleston, Tomie murdered Cebert Pauley. Tomie was staying in his cabin and on June 13, 1973, Pauley was discovered dead. His cabin was ransacked and his trouser pockets turned inside out. Pauley was known to carry a large amount of cash in his pants and that was missing when his body was found. Tomie’s fingerprints were found on the outside of a can of potted meat inside of the cabin. There were several witnesses that placed Tomie in the vicinity of the cabin before the murder. Tomie was arrested on March 19, 1973 in Manchester, New Hampshire by the police. West Virginia State Troopers Haynes and Shaw were sent to transport him back for trial. During the trip back, Tomie confessed to the troopers he was the one who murdered Cebert Pauley according to the court case, State v. Mollohan, no. 13927. Tomie later recanted his statement but the court felt there was sufficient evidence to convict him.  He was sentenced to life in prison. Sadly, this wasn’t the first time Tomie took someone’s life. In Bluefield, West Virginia, there had been a widely publicized unsolved murder that occurred on December 28, 1972.  66-year-old, Mary Osborne, a member of the First Church of God on South Street, helped clean the church. She was found at the church savagely beaten to death with a hammer.   Tomie testified he took the bus and traveled through Bluefield the day of the murder but had not gone to the church.  The Mercer County Prosecutor stated the church is only fifty feet from the bus terminal. In September 2017, the F.B.I. was able to close this cold case by connecting Tomie’s fingerprints near the scene of the crime. Tomie was convicted of this murder as well.    The greenhouse getaway was not the first time Tomie escaped the penitentiary. He, David Williams, and Bobby Stacy, who killed a Huntington police officer in 1982, escaped on April 3, 1988. They broke into the basement of the old Administration building and found bolt cutters in a metal locker. They then jumped through a side window and landed behind a large ventilation unit that was being installed. When the coast appeared clear, they ran to the chain link fence along Jefferson Avenue and cut their way to freedom. When Tomie left the penitentiary, he headed south to a town called Cameron, which is approximately nineteen miles away. He had been spotted a few times and police found lean-to shelters he probably built by Fork Ridge.  He also broke into at least two homes where he stole guns, blankets and clothing. At one of the homes, he left a note which detailed what he stole and that when he got some money, he would pay them back. Two weeks after escaping, Tomie was almost captured near Beeler’s Station off of U.S. Route 250. Marshall County Deputy Denise Hart saw him with a suitcase and stopped him asking for identification. While she checked his identification, he ran into a thick wooded area and escaped.  Deputy Hart fired five shots at him but missed. Tomie was apprehended on May 9, 1988 by Cameron Police Chief Charles Kotson. Tomie returned to the West Virginia Penitentiary until his next escape in 1992. After his capture then, he did not escape again and died at the Mount Olive Correctional Complex in Montgomery, West Virginia. The Old West Virginia Penitentiary at Moundsville is very popular tourism destination today. DAVID WILLIAMS David Williams was a hard-working coalminer who kept to himself.  However, the terrible choices of one evening changed his future.  David and an accomplice crossed the line of civility and committed a horrific crime. On Sunday, December 7, 1980, Harold Testerman returned home to Marytown in McDowell County.  He had been hunting and he told his neighbor he would be going to a wake of a neighbor at approximately 5:30 p.m.  But his truck remained in his drive-way all day which caused suspicion. At 11:15 p.m., a neighbor saw two people recklessly driving away from Testerman’s house.  Fifteen minutes later, another neighbor reported a fire at Testerman’s house.  After the fire was extinguished, the firefighters and police noticed the house was extremely disorderly as desks and drawers were tossed haphazardly through the rooms. Then there was a ghastly discovery of the charred remains of Testerman in the living room. At Testerman’s autopsy, the coroner, Dr. Ivin Sopher, revealed his cause of death was severe head injuries with a blunt object.  He was alive when the fire began but would have passed away because of the intensity of his wounds.  Several witnesses came forward and stated that David Williams and Floyd Franklin had been seen at Testerman’s house after he returned from hunting. Floyd Franklin was arrested first and charged with murder, arson, and robbery.  Franklin admitted to stealing from Testerman but claimed he had nothing to do with the fire or the murder.  In April 1981, Franklin is convicted of charges of robbery but acquitted of the murder and arson charges.  Franklin received forty years in the penitentiary. Williams could not be found at first but was tracked down to his family’s house in Big Jenny Hollow in McDowell County on January 16, 1981.  When the police arrived at the residence, they were told he was not there.  They did consent to a search of the property and Williams was found hiding under a bed in one of the bedrooms.   When Williams was tried, he was convicted of first-degree murder, arson, and robbery.  He was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.   Williams constantly attempted to escape in the penitentiary.  In 1983, he tried to climb over the wall by Tower 4 with a rope fashioned from a sheet.  In 1985, a plot was discovered where he was going to escape from the prison dining hall.  He, Mollohan, and Stacy were successful in the 1988 escape but he was captured in McDowell County shortly after they escaped. It has been reported that David William committed suicide by hanging himself in his cell at the Mount Olive Correctional Complex on December 18, 2018. Read the full article

[dirtysouthlore]

Atlas Greene Iredell, one of Nico's fifth-great-grandfathers and a captain in the confederate army. Atlas enlisted early into the war, and remained for most of it. He rose through the ranks quickly, achieving the title of captain in 1863 and carrying it for a year before tragically being captured in 1864. Atlas was married when he enlisted, having one son, confident he would return home to his family. He was placed in the 37th NC infantry, having come from Ashe NC. He was a devout father and christian, having joined the war in hopes of helping bring peace back to his town and to be able to quietly raise his family as he pleased. Before the war, he was a farmer, not of good financial status but hardworking and faithful to his land and his family. Perhaps it was that dedication that lead him to rise to status of captain in the army. Atlas was known for being unusually positive and high-spirited, even in hard times. During the war, Atlas would meet a man by the name of Elias Tucker, an eccentric fellow with a positive reputation in his company as well. The two would quickly become friends and their friendship would deepen quickly. Though everyone knew Atlas to be a married man, it seemed his wartime loneliness mixed with his friendship with Elias had swayed him to an...alternative persuasion, and the two were quick to move from casual conversation to sharing tents together. After only a short few months, the pair was inseparable, and seemed to motivate eachother in and out of combat. It was obvious to everyone from the outside that they were deeply in love, and that the relationship was far more tender than just relieving the urges of men. Elias would suffer a severe injury to his face somewhere in 1863, and during that time Atlas was noticeably off. His commanding suffered, and he was almost demoted in ranks from his visible difficulty handling not having his partner by his side. Eventually, Elias would return, and Atlas would regain his vigor. Their company would succeed in many battles, though, so with Atlas as one of their successful leaders few had a problem with his relationship with Elias. That was, until somewhere in late 1864, when a particularly nasty battle in northern Virginia would lead to Atlas being captured. He was taken prisoner and never to be seen again. No one at home ever heard from Atlas, neither did Elias, and it is presumed that he died of conditions related to his imprisonment. Elias would survive the war but would disappear after signing his oath of honor. He had no family or friends to remember him, and his lover was certainly dead. Meanwhile, Atlas' wife and son were left to continue the farm without him. His wife would grieve him for a long time, but would eventually re-marry, and her husband and son would help tend the farm. Eventually, her son would marry as well, having numerous children, and they were told stories of Atlas and his faith and bravery.

[venicepearl]

Emma Moss Booth-Tucker (8 January 1860 – 28 October 1903) known as 'The Consul', was the fourth child and second daughter of William Booth, the founder of the Salvation Army.

Converted at a young age, Emma Booth spoke in public for the first time during a stay at St Leonards. Aged just 19, Emma Booth became the Principal of the Officers' Training Home, The Salvation Army's first training school for women. On 10 April 1888 she married Major Frederick Tucker, the son of an affluent British family living in India, whose first wife had died of cholera in India in the previous year. Emma Booth and Frederick Tucker married at Clapton Congress Hall. As was the usual practice in the Booth family at that time, Tucker added his wife's maiden name to his own, becoming Booth-Tucker. The couple had a total of nine children; Frederick, Catherine Motee, Lucy, Herbert, John and Muriel and three others, William, Evangeline and Bramwell Tancred who died in infancy.

They remained for some time in India, but later moved back to London due to Emma Booth-Tucker's poor health. They worked for the Salvation Army International Headquarters in London before being posted to the United States in 1896, where they replaced Emma's brother Ballington and his wife Maud who had left the Salvation Army. They successfully managed to regain many of the converts lost by Ballington Booth's leaving, and Emma Booth-Tucker was given the title 'The Consul' by her father. The Booth-Tuckers' primary work was prison visitation and carrying out the farm colony experiment for urban poor envisaged in William Booth's book In Darkest England and the Way Out.

In 1903, at the age of 43, Emma Booth-Tucker died of a fractured skull and internal injuries in a train accident on her way from Amity Colony, Colorado to Chicago, where she was going to meet her husband. Her funeral service was held at the Carnegie Music Hall in New York City on 1 November 1903, and she was buried at the Kensico Cemetery in Valhalla, New York.

Emma Booth-Tucker died leaving a husband and six children. She was succeeded in her work in the United States by her younger sister Evangeline Booth.

[coff33notforme]

Got any general hcs for yancy and Illinois

A/n: Sorry this took so long, work has kept me kinda busy this week, but thank you for the request anon!

Genre: Headcannons, Crack, Fluff

Yancy

Yancy has a soft spot for small animals, any sort of tiny creature no matter what kind

Possums, raccoons, bunnies, puppies, kitties, doesn't matter 

Loves to knit, during his time in prison he picked up a couple of new hobbies to pass the time

He’s also surprisingly good at cooking, he spent some time doing kitchen duty so he was able to pick up some tricks and tips from chef

Very touched starved hasn’t been held since he was a little kid and though he’ll never ask he really could just use a hug from someone 

Loves warm weather throughout his time in prison he’s grown used to the cold night in his cell so when it warms up he  finds himself sleeping easier 

Isn’t a big sports guy believe it or not

Very shy about any sort of physical affection he's worried he's going to hurt someone with his strength, and he doesn't want to hurt more people  

More of a cat person, likes the big fluffy cats especially

One thing he's always wanted to try, was roller skating the idea of skating on wheels just sounds so enchanting to him for some reason 

He definitely ate bugs as a kid, look me in the eyes and tell me he didn’t 

Crashed his bike when he was younger several times

Illinois

Mama’s boy all the way

His mother was the only one who raised him growing up so he learned quite a lot from her 

Very respectful he was taught to never judge people from the outside for any sort of reason, he really only judges based on character

Another man who can cook well, his Mom taught him how when he was younger and while growing up he would help his Mom prepare meals 

Had a cocker spaniel growing up named Tucker

He kinda just gives random like nicknames to anyone he meets, like sweet little nicknames 

Mostly ‘Darling, Sugar, Sweetheart, Pumpkin, Sweet-pea, etc.’ 

Hates cold weather with a passion, he’s used to it don’t get me wrong adventuring out with nothing but a sleeping bag he's definitely adjusted he’s just not a big fan

Probably grew up on a farm of some sort 

Has always really enjoyed farm animals, Cows, Sheep, Pigs etc. 

They remind him of home 

Hates bugs especially spiders 

Loves hiking though hes basically adventuring all the time any way he dose enjoy hiking, to him it’s like a adventure with less stress

[indiemcn]

Taking a short break tonight to focus on adding some muses to my roster + revamp my muse page because it’s kind of tough to navigate now. 

While I plug away at this, here’s a little intro on the muses I’m going to add if anyone wants to peruse them. Feel free to message me for some plots :)

Jackson Prescott - College Freshmen/Barista - 18 - Strict Bottom - FC: Michael Provost

Wrestling scholarship, always just wanted to be one of the boys but has a thing for older men. Can’t stop checking guys out in the shower, is worried that people will find out and his reputation will be ruined. 

Avery Montgomery - Senator’s Son - 28 - Vers - FC: Beau Mirchoff

Image obsessed perfect son of a Republican Senator, closeted and with a dark side. 

Allen Pritchert - Dancer - 24 - Bottom - FC: Jordan Fisher

Juilliard graduate with dreams of making it to Broadway, he’s auditioned several times but never gotten the lead. Is willing to do anything to get the role of his dreams.

Marlon Tucker - Former gangbanger - 35 - Vers - FC: Miguel Gomez

Drugs, women, money, he didn’t care how dirty his hands got. Short king who used to use violence and intimidation as a means of getting what he wants. He was in prison, got out and has tried to be clean ever since.

Danny Stuart - Rancher - 38 - Top - FC: Derek Theler

Farm has been in his family for generations, he has a wife and kids but something in his life is missing. 

Harlow Jayme - Bouncer - 41 - Vers ( bottoms for younger )  - FC: Joe Manganiello

Works at a nightclub, has a thing for younger guys. 

Levi Paul - College Sophomore - 19 - Vers - FC: Mason Gooding

Pretends to only care about college football but Levi is a secret nerd who thinks everyone will laugh at him if they find out he’s on a full academic scholarship.

Clinton Farfield - Barber - 34 - Vers - FC: Jonathan Majors

Dropped out of school to take care of his old man, took over the barbershop after his pops passed on and has been working there ever since. Always wanted to be a family man but ex-husband cheated on him.

Xander Newman - Dirty Cop - 33 - Vers - FC: Boyd Holbrook

He used to be a good man, but one bribe led to another and now Xander has a reputation on for letting just about anything slide for the right price.

[tabloidtoc]

People, April 19

Cover: Brad Paisley and Kimberly Williams-Paisley -- love, family and giving back

Page 3: Chatter -- Thandiwe Newton on using her birth name years after it was misspelled in her first acting credit, Barack Obama on daughter Malia and Sasha being embarrassed by him, Martha Stewart on the reaction to her viral pool selfie, Katherine Schwarzenegger Pratt on raising daughter Lyla with husband Chris Pratt, Jennifer Lopez teasing her favorite cookie recipe, Chris Hemsworth on bulking up for parts

Page 4: 5 Things We're Talking About -- Ariana Grande joins The Voice, Michael Strahan minds the gap, Brad Pitt is sharing the tea, Ryan Reynolds and Blake Lively battle over beanies, Rege-Jean Page exits Bridgerton

Page 7: Contents

Page 8: StarTracks -- stars' best friends -- Prince Harry hit the beach to play fetch with his rescue dog Pula in Santa Barbara

Page 9: Rachel Brosnahan took a break from filming season 4 of The Marvelous Mrs. Masiel to pet a pup who passed by the set in NYC, Mariah Carey celebrated Easter with two of her dogs

Page 10: Famous Families -- Amy Schumer masked up to play with son Gene at the NY PopsUp festival at Astoria Park in NYC, Jessica Alba and her husband Cash Warren celebrated Easter with their three children Haven and Honor and Hayes, Beyonce posted a rare selfie with her and Jay-Z's oldest daughter Blue Ivy, Victoria and David Beckham got in the Easter spirit with children Brooklyn and Harper and Romeo and Cruz, Chiefs QB Patrick Mahomes and fiancee Brittany Matthews celebrated their first Easter with daughter Sterling Skye

Page 11: LeBron James deemed his youngest child daughter Zhuri his workout partner when she joined him in the gym for some flexing, Kate Hudson relaxed in the tub with her daughter Rani Rose

* First Look -- inside Angelina Jolie's scorching return to the big screen -- in the upcoming thriller Those Who Wish Me Dead, Angelina returns to action as a smoke jumper who encounters a traumatized 12-year-old boy played by Finn Little who needs her help

Page 12: Inside Robert Downey Jr.'s modern mansion -- for the spring issue of Purist magazine, Robert and his producer wife, Susan, opened their doors to give a tour of their futuristic Malibu home -- their Binishell, a type of of energy-efficient, dome-shaped house, sits on seven acres and runs on wind turbines and a solar-generated water system that reduce energy consumption

Page 13: StyleTracks -- bold and bright at the Screen Actors Guild Awards -- Viola Davis, Mindy Kaling, Jamie Chung, Helen Mirren, Kaley Cuoco, Kerry Washington

Page 15: Tiger Woods' car crash -- new questions, tough recovery

Page 16: Aaron Rodgers and Shailene Woodley take their love on vacation

Page 18: Heart Monitor -- Vanessa Hudgens and Cole Tucker heating up, Lily James and Queens of the Stone Age bassist Michael Shuman new couple, Michael Buble and Luisana Lopilato happy anniversary, Brian Austin Green and Sharna Burgess getting serious

Page 19: Idris Elba and Caleb McLaughlin horsing around

Page 20: Brandi Carlile shares her struggles

* Lori Loughlin and Mossimo Giannulli had an emotional homecoming on Easter weekend after he was released from federal prison

Page 21: Blake Shelton looks back on 20 years of fame

Page 22: Jeannie Mai and Jeezy's backyard fairy tale wedding in Atlanta

Page 29: Passages, Why I Care -- Robert Irwin is helping the planet by being an advocate for Prince William's Earthshot Prize

Page 31: Stories to Make You Smile - Aimee Takaha of Aimee's Farm Animal Sanctuary in Arizona is offering cow-cuddling sessions for those who miss hugs during the pandemic, to celebrate their 50th wedding anniversary Carolyn and Kelly Gay re-created their original wedding photos

Page 33: People Picks -- Law & Order: Organized Crime

Page 34: Them, Spy City, Rhiannon Giddens -- They're Calling Me Home, Q&A with David Alan Grier

Page 36: The Serpent, One to Watch -- Mortal Kombat's Lewis Tan

Page 37: The Nevers, Iyanla: Fix My Life

Page 39: Books

Page 40: Cover Story -- Brad Paisley and Kimberly Williams-Paisely -- you have to focus on the love and laughter -- after a pandemic year that sidelined their careers, the singer and actress found joy in family time and purpose in giving back to their community

Page 46: Inside the sparkling, rainbow-filled world of JoJo Siwa -- she began as a kid who loved dance, then found fame on reality TV and YouTube and built her brand to mogul status. That was all before she came out as LGBTQ. She's just getting started

Page 52: Double Talk -- Melissa McCarthy and Octavia Spencer's 25-year friendship -- long before they were famous, the two stars forged a deep personal bond. After more than two decades, the finally got to work together

Page 56: The Lost Kitchen's Erin French turning a painful past into a delicious new life -- addiction and divorce nearly cost her everything, but now she's running one of the most loved and hardest-to-book restaurants in America

Page 60: Solving a 40-year-old murder mystery -- justice for Helene Pruszynski -- four decades after a young woman's brutal rape and murder, new DNA technology leads to her killer

Page 62: Emily VanCamp -- growing up on TV & finding love -- how the busy actress, now costarring on both The Falcon and the Winter Soldier and The Resident, still makes time for what matters most: her family

Page 64: My Mother, Eartha Kitt -- 12 years after the entertainer's death, her daughter Kitt Shapiro reveals a mother like no other: fierce, fabulous and a fighter at heart

Page 69: Why I'm Helping Others Get Vaccinated -- fighting for my patients -- Detroit nurse Monique Morris almost died from COVID-19, and now she's doing her part to help put an end to the pandemic

Page 70: Earth Day Special -- a room-by-room guide to saving the planet -- combating climate change is a daunting challenge, but these small fixes around the house can make a big difference. Plus, inspiring stories of four everyday environmental heroes

Page 73: Jerome Foster II, rallying youth against climate change

Page 74: Katharine Hayhoe, bringing moms together

Page 76: Laura Turner Seydel, carrying on a family tradition

Page 78: Carl Smith, fighting to save his home

Page 88: One Last Thing -- Catherine Zeta-Jones

[don-lichterman]

On The Rampage, Cotton Pickin, Parchman Farm, Parchman Prison, Woman's Week, 9/11, Looking Old, Crack Cocaine, Opioids, Tucker Carlson & God

On The Rampage, Don Lichterman, Cotton Pickin, Parchman Farm, Parchman Prison, Woman's Week, 9/11, Looking Old, Crack Cocaine, Opioids, Tucker Carlson & God

[if-you-fan-a-fire]

“Man, 65, Asked Life Term, Gets 7 Years For Shooting,” Toronto Star. March 20, 1941. Page 41. --- Saws Lawyer He Wounded, Settled With Hydro Without His Consent --- ‘DESTITUTE,’ IS PLEA ---- Special to The Star Cobourg, March 20 - William Turner, who asked for a life sentence on an attempted murder charge, today was sentenced to seven years in penitentiary. The 65-year-old farmer took the verdict calmly and said nothing.

Yesterday he was convicted for attempted murder after he testified that he intended to shoot Fred C. Richardson, Mr. Justice Kelly presided.

When he walked into Richardson’s law office in Port Hope and fired a .22 rifle at him, his motive, he declared, was not murder but a move to have a charge laid against him.

‘I figured it would bring me into court and I would be be able to show how the Hydro had dealt with me,’ he asserted.

Turner expressed resentment over the alleged fact that Richardson, acting as his solicitor in his dealing with the Hydro, had accepted a settlement for him without his authorization. Turner’s main objection, however, was what he alleged as the disregard of the Hydro for the damage sustained when a culvert of the H.E.P.C. caused his land to be flooded three years in succession.

‘If I had wanted to murder him, would i not have shot him a more dangerous spot?’ Turned asked Dr. R. McDerment. ‘I can’t say what you would have done,’ replied the doctor.

Chief Thomas Murphy of Port Hope related that after he arrested Turner, the latter said to Dr. Tucker that ‘I just let him have it. He should have been murdered long ago.’ ‘I didn’t say that,’ Turner said.

‘If Richardson had done what I told him to do, this case would never have accepted.’ Turner said. ‘By his accepting the offer of the Hydro, my wife and I are homeless and destitute.’ Turner’s wife was taken to the counties home at Cobourg around the latter part of last December.

‘Do you wish to testify,’ his lordship asked Turner.

‘Can I refer to the Hydro or is it taboo?’ Turner said. ‘Can I read some of these letters I have here about the Hydro matter?’

‘You may, if you wish to be sworn and go into the witness stand,’ his lordship replied.

Flooded Out, He Says ‘My farm was flooded in 1934 because of a culvert te Hydro owned and they sent down a man to look it over in October of 1934. I told him the culvert needed repairs, but it was not repaired until 1935, and I was flooded again. My net income that year was $67. The agent the Hydro sent said that he couldn’t see any damage yet thousands of cauliflower and other plants were dying. When 1936 came around I told the farm loan board I couldn’t pay. I put $8,000 in that land and lost it. The flooding washed out all the fertilizer and the land was starving. Then the top soil was washed away. The Hydro man said that there was no damage.

‘The trouble is that Richardson accepted the settlement without my consent,’ he declared. ‘I was penniless. We were sold out. We got relief vouchers four months after we applied. I consider that Richardson buttered his bread on both sides.

‘I figured that if I was charged for an offence,’ continued Turner, ‘I would be brought into court and would be able to bring up this Hydro matter. I spent $8,000 on those 68 acres and when they were sold the price it got was only $500.’ Won Shooting Prizes ‘Asked by Mr. Deyman if he identified the rifle exhibited in court, Turner assented.

‘Certainly I used the gun. I admit it, I won a prize, a silver cup, for shooting once and I didn’t intend to kill Richardson. I wanted this case into the courts. If it hadn’t been for all these things Richardson would have been without a hole in him today,’ declared Turner.

He then returned to the prisoner’s dock and sad: ‘I would ask you for my crime to send me to Kingston penitentiary for the rest of my days,’ he said to his lordship.

‘The jury must find you guilty first,’ Mr. Justice Kelly told him. Turner replied that ‘They can’t do anything else but find me guilty.’

‘Do you wish to address the jury,’ asked his lordship. ‘No, they know all about it. There is nothing more I an say. I am here because of the Hydro.’

‘Put out of your minds any sympathy you may feel,’ said the court. ‘Regard only the cold facts of the evidence and them alone. You will feel better for proceeding that way. There is no dispute on the facts and there is no doubt that on Jan. 25 Turner shot Richardson.’

[AL: Turner (#6522) was born in Sault Ste. Marie and had never been in prison before. he worked on the penitentiary farm at Kingston and was released in 1946.]

[lopithecusfanfiction]

Dear Aaron Pt. 6

Robert writes letters to Aaron he’ll never send while he’s in prison (If you have any other ideas for letters, let me know and I might write it!) Now posted on AO3! [X]

Dear Aaron,

The daily grind is starting to get to me. I've honestly lasted longer than I thought but I'm starting to get bored. You know me, never one to stick to something for too long.

In prison, you have no choice. You get up, you eat, you do your job, get free time or outside (it's the guards' choice), eat some more, and then you go to sleep.

Well... you know the drill.

I've gone looking through some old books they have here, trying to find something that catches my fancy. I picked up two of them (I had to charm one of the guards to let me take a second book back to my cell.)

One is called Wait for Me by Caroline Leech (I picked it up because the title reminded me of you and me.) But as I read the book, it reminded me more of when I was a teenager on the farm. A forbidden love between a farmer and a farmhand that could potentially tear the family apart...

The second one is Say You Still Love Me by  K.A. Tucker (another one, I admit, I picked up because it reminded me of us.) As I am reading this one, it reminds me of us. This one is better. I like thinking about us.

It's like reliving the earlier days with you and me, the time when I was still part of the White family and you and I were just a secret. God, I can't believe how much I loved you even back then.

You'd probably find it funny that I am the main female character in the book. That would make you the love interest with a distant attitude who grew up on the wrong side of the tracks. Sounds a bit like you, doesn't it.

Is it weird that these books make me happy and sad at the same time?

Maybe I should try mystery instead...

Love, Robert

[sweetsmellosuccess]

TIFF 2018: Day 3

Films: 4 Best Film of the Day: The Old Man & the Gun (pictured)

Gwen: This is no white-knuckle affair; it’s a red one. As in knuckles chapped and scraped until nearly bleeding. Wind plays a large atmospheric role in William McGregor’s unsettling drama, both as a constant background noise, and as a bleak visual metaphor for the pitiless sparseness of the land. Wales is shown to be both staggeringly beautiful, with its craggy mountains and rolling green hills, but also unwaveringly uninviting: You will not see a more overcast film this year. The story concerns a young woman (Eleanor Worthington-Cox), her kid sister; and her struggling mother (Maxine Peake), as they try to survive on their hardscrabble farm while Gwen’s father is out fighting in an unnamed war. As their farm gets more and more stricken by what seems like a curse — their sheep are slaughtered, their potatoes are fallow, and their horse breaks his leg — it slowly becomes clear that these are not supernatural forces at work, but rather the acts of a supremely callous and hateful capitalist, who’s after their land for his mind operation. The obvious comparison would be to Robert Egger’s deeply unnerving The Witch, but McGregor isn’t playing with devils and demonic curses, here, just the horror perpetrated by callous greed and disregard for humanity. The film’s unrelenting grimness could certainly be a deterrent for some audiences, but it does capture something both about the land, and the attitude of those who can survive it.

Donnybrook: As a longtime admirer of Jamie Bell (and not only because he was the voice of Tintin), I’m happy to see he’s branching out his roles and expanding his reach, as it were, I just wish he’d picked a better project than this grungy, exploitive action drama from Tim Sutton. Bell plays a dude named “Jarhead Earl,” a former Marine, and a dutiful fellow on the economic downswing, looking to make a pile of cash at the big midwestern, bare-knuckle brawl known as the “Brook.” With a wife (Dara Tiller), teetering on the edge of meth addiction, and two young kids, Earl stakes all his hope on the prospect of winning the Brook, and claiming the $100K prize. Meanwhile, many other unsavory characters flit about, including another vet-turned meth dealer, Angus (Frank Grillo), and his seriously deranged sister (Margaret Qualley), whose had to put up with years of her brother’s intense abuse and has had enough; and the local sheriff (James Badge Dale), who’s knee-deep in his own business with Angus, and is dirty as they come. The film is filed with flags, guns, fists, and blood, as well as a jacked sensibility that suggests a faint homage to Lynch, without any of his wit, creativity, or artistic merit. It is not intended as irony, to be sure, or if it is, no one informed the serious-as-death actors, who play this to the last drop of blood. It’s the kind of film where a tied and tortured middleman gets to have sex with a seriously beautiful woman, while still bound to a chair, and immediately after he reaches the highs of ecstasy, she tips him over and shoots him in the head.

The Old Man & the Gun: How would you follow up a film as utterly stunning as A Ghost Story, a powerhouse of a philosophical treatise on love, time, and human artistic legacy? Perhaps by approaching a similar topic from a vastly different direction. Based on a true story, David Lowery’s film follows the exploits of a man named Forest Tucker (Robert Redford), an elderly bank thief who simply cannot stop plying his trade. His approach, gentlemanly and smooth, matches the tone of the film’s opening two acts, as Forest hooks up with his two compadres (Danny Glover and Tom Waits), meets and woos a feisty widow (Sissy Spacek), and matches wits with the detective (Casey Affleck), whom he inadvertently humiliated during an earlier heist. By the film’s third act, however, as he gets closer to being caught, the film begins to take on a more melancholy air, as if sensing his mortality. He made a career out of springing himself from prisons (a series that gets lovingly highlighted near the end), but there is the sense he can’t escape his mortal prison, nor can he change spots and just settle down on a nice horse farm. A shot near the end, as the cops are sweeping in posits him as a kind of Don Quixote figure, sitting forlornly on his horse, looking down and defeated. Reportedly, this is Redford’s acting swansong, and if so, like Forest, he’s certainly going out on his own terms.

Halloween: Unofficially, there have been 700 bazillion sequels and remakes of John Carpenter’s 1978 slasher film classic, most of which have been derivative drivel, but with director David Gordon Green, working with longtime collaborator Danny McBride, you finally have a new vision for the venerable horror series. It’s been four decades – to the day – since Michael Myers terrorized a teenaged girl and murdered her friends. Since then, he has been locked up in an asylum, never uttering a word (the film smartly disavows all previous sequels). To the still-disturbed Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis), however, the nightmare has never ended. Since surviving his original attack, she has dedicated her life to preparing for his eventual return, learning fighting/survival skills, fortifying her house, and arming herself to the teeth. This devotion to self-protection she imbued to her daughter (Judy Greer), and attempts to do so with her granddaughter (Andi Matichak), now the same age as Laurie was when she first met the Bogeyman. Things move along in typical Halloween fashion, with Michael escaping, donning the mask, and returning to Haddonfield to kill indiscriminately once again, only this time, he finds Laurie well-prepared and waiting for him. What ensues follows a similar pattern but with a major twist. In the film’s most exhilarating moments, the film gleefully twists and turns the tropes we have come to know so well – one such moment, setting up the film’s fiery climax, left the midnight TIFF audience laughing and cheering wildly – and morphs into, of all things, a feminist slasher flick. Naturally, the ending leaves things just ambiguous enough for another sequel (or six), but as a re-imagining of one of the seminal horror movies of the last 40 years, it’s got a lot of moxie. It might not have the actual scares of the original, but the film’s forward-thinking politics twist the butcher knife in very satisfying ways.  

Tomorrow: A mix-and-match sort of day: In-between interviews, I’ll be checking out the militia-group thriller Standoff at Sparrow Creek; the harrowing sounding The Most Beautiful Couple; another Witch-like film in the horror/western The Wind, and, if I can stay awake, the brutal retelling of the Mumbai terrorist attack from 2008 in Hotel Mumbai.

[fatleafnews]

// Man Sprints Out Of Busted Cannabis Farm Holding A Plant On Live TV ... A young man attempted to steal a marijuana plant from a closing pot farm But was caught in the act live on camera by news station KMTV. Local news anchor Cameron Tucker seemed unfazed by the thief. The farm in Kent, England was being shut down for illegal cannabis farming. It was being run by a couple who pleaded guilty to Class B drug production. They claimed they were growing for themselves and make cancer-treating oil. The pair was given a 22 month prison sentence each. The plant thief is not known to police and remains at large.

[96thdayofrage]

While incarcerated at the Stewart Detention Center, Wilhen Barrientos—an immigrant from Guatemala—was forced to labor for CoreCivic, the infamous for-profit prison company. During his incarceration, he worked in the facility’s kitchen, making between $1 and $4 per day as part of the ironically named “Voluntary Work Program.” Barrientos explained that in prison, he faced an “impossible choice”: he could either work for pennies, or attempt to live without necessities such as soap and toilet paper, which were not provided to detainees and had to be purchased. (Once, when Barrientos requested more toilet paper, a CoreCivic guard denied his request and told Barrientos to “use his fingers” instead.) And when Barrientos refused to work double shifts, or tried to organize his coworkers, guards would threaten him with solitary confinement. In 2017, CoreCivic punished Barrientos by placing him in medical segregation for two months, using the excuse of a non-existent chicken pox infection as justification for their retaliation.

Barrientos is not alone. On any given day, there are about 50,000 immigrants being held in detention, most of them in private prisons. Just to be clear, these immigrants are not incarcerated as punishment for a crime; rather, they are being held in what’s called “civil” detention until their deportation cases can be heard by an immigration judge or an appeals court. Under the law, “civil” detention is supposedly non-punitive; it’s simply an administrative measure to ensure that people don’t flee and disappear before their cases are decided. But for those on the inside, immigration detention is functionally indistinguishable from being in any other prison. Approximately half of those 50,000 detainees work in the “Voluntary Work Program,” earning a pittance for their labor, and many more are forced to do entirely uncompensated janitorial work. All across the country, detained immigrants are forced to labor to increase the profits of the corporations which keep them incarcerated.

The public debate over the use of for-profit prisons has largely focused on the privatization of prisons that incarcerate people convicted of crimes. Although most people—libertarians excepted—agree that profiting from incarceration is morally abhorrent, some critics have pointed out that private prisons are not major drivers of mass incarceration. Historian David Stein has accurately described them as “a camera, not an engine” of mass incarceration. In 2017, about 8 percent of state and federal inmates (121,420 people) were housed in private prisons. In the federal system, for-profit prisons play a somewhat bigger role: about 27,500 people, or 15 percent of federal inmates, were held in private facilities. The state with the highest proportion of prisoners in for-profit facilities is New Mexico, which holds about 42 percent of its incarcerated population in private prisons.

121,420 people is a huge number, but it’s a relatively insignificant percentage of the huge numbers of people currently imprisoned as a result of the world historical crime that is American mass incarceration. Thus, while ending the use of private prisons in the criminal punishment system is still a worthy goal, it’s not one that will likely lead to systemic change. On the other hand, private prisons are absolutely central to the “civil” system of immigration detention. The vast majority of detained immigrants—more than 70 percent—are held in for-profit facilities. The radical expansion of immigration detention over the last thirty years would not have been possible without the for-profit incarceration industry.

The story of the companies that have made this lucrative imprisonment of immigrants possible began in the 1980s. Privatized, profitable punishment had a long history in the United States prior to that point, but after the horrific abuses of convict leasing led to its abolition in the first decades of the twentieth century, profitable prisoner exploitation enterprises like chain gangs and prison farms were managed directly by state authorities, not by private individuals and companies. This began to change in 1983, when two entrepreneurs named Robert Crants and Thomas Beasley saw a business opportunity at the intersection of the rapid growth of incarceration and the Reagan Administration’s push for privatization. They decided to start a private prison company called the Corrections Corporation of America (CCA). Neither Crants nor Beasley had any experience with managing prisons, so they reached out to T. Don Hutto, a warden with a long track record of running public prisons at a profit in Texas and Arkansas. It so happens that people incarcerated at these public prisons had previously sued Hutto because of conditions that were described by the district court as being “a dark and evil world completely alien to the free world;” conditions which included prisoners being whipped with a five-foot long leather strap, receiving electrical shocks to their genitals with the “Tucker Telephone,” and being fed a starvation diet while held in punitive isolation. Hutto’s sinister track record, however, did not stop Crants and Beasley from partnering with him; they believed Hutto could help them turn a profit. CCA received its first contract to run an Immigration and Naturalization Service detention facility in 1984 and went public in 1986. (Today, CoreCivic manages an immigration detention center named for T. Don Hutto near Austin, Texas!)

The founding of CCA marked the beginning of a new era of American incarceration. Just one year later, in 1984, the Wackenhut Corrections Corporation was formed. Both companies have since changed their names, as public awareness of private prison companies (and negative publicity around them) has increased. CCA rebranded itself under the blandly inscrutable name “CoreCivic” after journalist Shane Bauer went undercover as a guard at a CCA prison in Louisiana and released a blockbuster investigation highlighting the abuses there. Wackenhut, meanwhile, is now known as GEO Group. (GEO is not an acronym for anything, it’s just meant to obscure what their actual business is.) Through acquisitions, these two corporations have become by far the largest private prison corporations. GEO Group manages 124 detention facilities of various types in the United States while CoreCivic manages 108. Business is very good: in 2019, GEO Group had $2.48 billion in revenue, while CoreCivic had $1.98 billion. (Two other companies—LaSalle Corrections and the creepily-titled Management and Training Corporation—also incarcerate a significant number of people.)

Both CoreCivic and GEO Group have long had ties to Republican politicians. Thomas Beasley was once the head of the Tennessee Republican Party, and most of CCA’s initial investors—which included then-Governor Lamar Alexander’s wife, Honey—came from his party connections. GEO Group has been particularly active in courting Republican politicians, both nationally and in its home state of Florida. For example, before his election to the Senate, Rick Scott headlined a fundraiser held at the home of GEO Group’s CEO. In addition, GEO recently hired the outgoing president of the Florida Senate as head counsel and former Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi as a lobbyist.

Both GEO Group and CoreCivic donated heavily to pro-Trump political action committees. GEO Group also donated $50,000 to the conservative activist group Turning Point USA, which has strong connections to the Trump White House. In 2017, GEO Group relocated its annual conference from its own headquarters to the Trump National Doral Miami golf resort. In addition, both companies, whose stocks soared immediately after President Trump’s election, donated $250,000 apiece to Trump’s notably corrupt inauguration festivities.

It is no surprise that both corporations would enthusiastically support the Trump administration: immigration detention is central to their business model (and to Trump’s as well). In 2019, almost 30 percent of GEO Group and CoreCivic’s revenue came from detaining immigrants, and ICE contracts are both companies’ single largest revenue source. What’s more, much of these profits are essentially guaranteed by government policy. In 2010, Congress passed a law requiring ICE to maintain at least 33,400 detention “beds”: what this means, essentially, is that ICE is heavily incentivized to keep at least 33,400 human beings imprisoned at all times in order to continue justifying their receipt of this funding. (This provision has come to be known as “the bed quota” because ICE leadership has, in practice, interpreted it as a legal directive that they must keep the pre-funded beds continuously filled.) The majority of those “beds” are managed by GEO Group and CoreCivic. In the government shutdown and border wall fight of early 2019, Democrats beat back the Trump Administration’s attempt to require ICE to maintain 52,000 beds, but the average daily population of detained immigrants nevertheless remained above 50,000 for fiscal year 2019. In its 2019 budget, the Trump Administration asked for an even bigger 54,000-bed requirement.

It’s worth noting that the abuses of immigration detention pre-date the Trump administration. Conditions during the Trump administration have been awful of course: besides the COVID outbreaks and the forced hysterectomies, a USA Today investigation in 2019 found more than four hundred allegations of sexual assault or abuse, as well as numerous instances of inadequate medical care, frequent use of solitary confinement, and more than eight hundred instances of physical force against detainees. These abuses led detained immigrants to file nearly 20,000 grievances between 2017 and 2019. During the Obama administration, hundreds of detained immigrants reported being sexually abused by guards. Despite the administration’s promises, the mass detention of immigrants continued until the end of Obama’s presidency, and detainees were never provided with protection from abuse. The abuse of detained immigrants is caused by the fact of their detention, no matter who is President.

Private prisons, like all privatized services, make money by cutting costs. But once prisons are constructed, the two largest costs are labor and medical care, which are impossible to cut without making conditions worse inside the prisons. For example, labor and benefits costs make up 59 percent of CoreCivic’s operating expenses (even though its non-unionized correctional officers are paid as little as nine dollars per hour, much less than most unionized state prisoner guards). In addition to underpaying their own guards, a key way that CoreCivic and GEO Group further reduce labor costs is by forcing detainees to work for very little or no pay.

There are two main forms of coerced labor in immigration detention centers. First is the so-called “Voluntary Work Program” that Barrientos worked in. The program rests on a thin legal basis, and the going rate—$1 per day—was set in 1979 and then never renewed by Congress, leading some courts to determine that state minimum wage laws might apply to labor in detention centers. Although the application of state minimum wage laws to detained workers is complex, it is clear that absolutely nothing forbids GEO Group or CoreCivic from voluntarily paying the state or federal minimum wage—or more—for detainees’ labor.

Today, all detained immigrants are eligible to work in the Program. They perform a wide variety of jobs, from washing dishes to cutting hair to performing clerical work for the private facility manager. Any job performed by a prisoner for an extremely sub-minimum wage makes it unnecessary to hire an employee to perform the same task, thereby boosting the profits of the for-profit prison corporations. ICE regulations require detained immigrants to “maintain their immediate living areas in a neat and orderly manner,” and GEO Group and CoreCivic have frequently stretched this provision to force detainees to clean the bathrooms, hallways, and common areas of their prisons without any compensation.

ICE’s own guidelines for the Voluntary Work Program make it appear that the program is truly voluntary—so far as any incarcerated labor is voluntary. Officially, detainees cannot be required to work, and cannot be punished for quitting their jobs or refusing to work. These regulations, however, do not reflect the reality of labor in detention. An American Civil Liberties Union report found, “[e]ven though the program is supposed to be voluntary, detainees’ experiences are illustrative of its coercive nature.” The Justice Department has acknowledged that it is possible for facility operators to “illegally” force detained immigrants to work (although they maintain that the program, if run “correctly,” would be voluntary).

Detained immigrants have alleged that the program is coercive for two main reasons. First, participating in the program is the only way to buy necessities such as toothpaste, soap, and feminine hygiene products, which are not otherwise provided to detained immigrants and are sold at highly inflated prices. Second, GEO Group and CoreCivic retaliate against detainees by putting them in solitary confinement or changing their housing assignment if they refuse to work double shifts, refuse to work while sick, or protest unsafe conditions. In at least one GEO Group prison, the official policy was to place detained immigrants in solitary confinement if they refused to perform uncompensated janitorial work or encouraged others to do so. During the pandemic, protests against unsafe working conditions have understandably risen significantly, while at the same time facility managers have retaliated against protestors and placed immigrants who tested positive for COVID-19 in solitary confinement.

Current and formerly-detained immigrants have filed several lawsuits over the last six years, arguing that the work policies in GEO Group and CoreCivic detention centers violate the forced labor provision of the Trafficking Victims Protection Act (TVPA). The TVPA, first passed in 2000, is best known as an anti-sex trafficking law, but it also contains the most important federal prohibition of forced labor. If a person or company obtains labor through threats of or actual force, “serious harm,” or abuse of legal process, they can be charged or sued under the law. The TVPA is most commonly used to protect immigrant workers, but it applies to everyone in the United States. For example, if you threaten to pull a gun on the guests at a party and force them to clean your apartment, you have violated the TVPA (and several other laws. Please don’t do that).

The forced labor statute of the TVPA was passed in response to a 1988 Supreme Court decision ruling that a farm owner named Ike Kozminski had not committed the distinct crime of “involuntary servitude” when he coerced two mentally disabled men into working on his farm. The Court, always happy to disadvantage workers, held that “involuntary servitude” required physical or legal coercion, not psychological coercion, regardless of how vulnerable or powerless the coerced person might be. The TVPA was explicitly intended to circumvent the Supreme Court’s decision in Kozminski and protect workers from all forms of coerced labor.

So far, the immigrants and their attorneys have won a string of victories. Courts across the country have rejected GEO Group and CoreCivic’s arguments that the TVPA does not apply to for-profit detention centers and that they should therefore be allowed to force detainees to labor. In addition, three courts have certified classes of thousands of immigrants who were allegedly forced to labor while detained. As the lawsuits wend their way through the court system, it appears more and more likely that the plaintiffs could win a judgment which forces the corporations to pay massive damages and stop their illegal practices. The private prison corporations have already begged ICE to pay their legal bills, and one scholar has estimated that paying minimum wage for work in detention centers could reduce their profits by as much as 25 percent.

Other recent activist challenges have further threatened GEO Group and CoreCivic’s profits, compounding the importance of these forced labor lawsuits. Both companies’ stock prices cratered when it appeared the Obama administration would phase out federal contracts with private prisons, but rebounded after Trump was elected. In the last few years, however, activists have successfully forced institutions such as universities to divest their holdings, and, most importantly, forced major banks to stop lending to GEO Group and CoreCivic. Both corporations have acknowledged in SEC filings that “[i]ncreasing activist resistance” poses a significant threat to their profits. Consequently, their stock prices have fallen by more than two-thirds since peaking in mid-2017. Forcing private prison companies to pay up for stolen labor, while simultaneously choking off their access to investors, is a two-pronged strategy that has the potential to cripple their operations.  

So what will happen to immigration detention if these lawsuits succeed, or if Joe Biden decides to reinstate the late Obama-era plan to phase out private prisons? Although we should never underestimate the ability of the carceral state to adjust to keep people locked up, without private prison facilities it would be extremely difficult to detain immigrants at the same volume. The roughly 30 percent of detained immigrants who are currently not held in private facilities are held in local jails. In theory, ICE could radically expand its use of jails to detain immigrants. But this may prove difficult: in addition to the logistical difficulties of shifting their detention practices, many localities have recently refused to allow ICE to detain immigrants in county jails. In the past, ICE has responded to these refusals by utilizing more space at private prisons: for example, in 2018 ICE moved detained immigrants to a nearby GEO Group facility when the city of Atlanta canceled its contract to lease jail space to ICE. Without private prison facilities as an option, ICE will have nowhere to put its intended prisoners if local jails decline to lease them space.

Obviously, the clearest moral, economic, and logistical solution to the problems faced by for-profit ICE detention centers is to stop detaining immigrants. The radical expansion of immigration detention is a recent phenomenon and could easily be reversed. But additionally, everyone should be able to agree that it is imperative to stop corporations from profiting from forced labor. The lawsuits against GEO Group and CoreCivic are being argued by dedicated advocates and organizations, but there are plenty of other ways to weaken immigration detention and the for-profit prisons that enable it.

For those who want to see an end to for-profit prisons, forced labor, and the mass jailing of immigrants generally, two useful sites for organizing are divestment campaigns and local elections. Although banks have distanced themselves from private prison corporations, institutional investors still own large chunks of them and can be pressured to sell them off. Vanguard, which likely manages your retirement fund if you’re lucky enough to have one, owns more than 15 percent of both CoreCivic and GEO Group’s stock. Vanguard also manages a number of unions’ pension funds, but so far has resisted divesting from its private prison holdings. Meanwhile, local elections for sheriffs and District Attorneys have a major impact on ICE’s ability to arrest and detain immigrants. ICE relies on the cooperation of local authorities to help arrest and detain immigrants, but local officials are free to withdraw that cooperation, as many have in recent years.  

As dark as the last decade of deportation policy and mass incarceration has been, a world without immigrant prisons—and without for-profit prisons—may be much closer than it seems.