truTV: Not Reality. Actuality.

Nathaniel Abraham was convicted of murder in 1998 and incarcerated, but only until he turned 21, which was in January, at which time he was moved into a rent-free apartment in Bay City, Mich., and enrolled tuition-free in Delta College, in a program sponsored by Michigan Rehabilitation Services. Though some criticized such lavish treatment of a murderer, Abraham seemed ready to start his new life, arriving in Oakland Circuit Court for his formal release wearing "a black fur coat, ivory fedora hat, and a ivory and hot- pink pinstriped suit with matching pink tie and shoes," according to a Detroit News reporter.

For two months late last year after a pair of convicted murderers escaped from Sudbury prison in England, the local Derbyshire police refused to release their pictures. According to the police, "Photographs of named people that are in police possession are classed as data, and their release is restricted by law" to instances where there is a "proper policing purpose." Derbyshire authorities said that since the escapees had probably left the area, there was no such purpose, and the photographs should be kept confidential.

In 2003, Bryn Mawr College student Janet Lee had apparently not watched enough movies or television to understand that drug smugglers often use condoms (swallowed by human "mules") to get cocaine and heroin into the country. Lee attempted to board an airliner with several flour-filled condoms that she said her classmates and she employed to squeeze as stress relievers and said she was astonished to be arrested at the Philadelphia airport and jailed for three weeks until the lab could verify that the substance was flour. In January 2007, the city of Philadelphia agreed to pay her $180,000 to settle her lawsuit for her wrongful detention.

In December, New York City panhandler Eddie Wise won $100,000 from the city when a judge ruled he had been illegally arrested 27 times under a law that had been ruled unconstitutional in 1992.

At least 30 Texas death-row inmates have pages on dating websites, according to a November Associated Press report, and the murderers usually describe themselves in cuddly terms. Wrote convicted cop-killer Randy Halprin, "I think I'm a pretty funny guy. I have a wacked

National Public Radio reported in October that perhaps thousands of prison inmates are using cell phones (which are contraband in all correctional facilities) and that the problem has gotten so bad that Maryland state Sen. Ed DeGrange said he was sitting at his desk recently when an inmate called him on a cell phone with a list of general complAin'ts. Also, a warden in Texas reported getting a call from the mother of an inmate, demanding that the warden do something to improve cell-phone reception in the prison so she can chat more easily with her son.