truTV: Not Reality. Actuality.

Throwing the Book at Them: Under Manitoba courts' interpretation of Canada's Youth Criminal Justice Act, no part of a youth's sentence can be for the purpose of "deterrence." Consequently, Judge Ronald Meyers in August sentenced two teenagers (with 22 prior convictions between them) for three armed robberies, sending them away for eight and six months, respectively, plus some community service. Judge Meyers made the news in 2003 when he sentenced a 15-year-old who had admitted repeatedly, fatally beating a boy in the head with a sock containing a billiards ball to one day in jail (plus probation).

German filmmaker (Mr.) Rosa von Praunheim told reporters in July that he will finish by December his movie based on notorious convicted cannibal Armin Meiwes, who is serving eight years in prison following his January conviction for the apparently consensual murder and consumption of a man. "Your Heart in My Brain" (working title) was funded in part by a government film foundation in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia and begins with Meiwes being confronted in prison by his victim's head, which, according to a Reuters report, encourages Meiwes to take pride in what he has done and to move on to more killing.

Inexplicable: New York City judge Laura Blackburne came under fire from the police in June when she helped Derek Sterling (described by police as a "convicted drug dealer" but in a rehab program) escape out a side door of her courtroom so that he could avoid a detective poised to arrest him for a May robbery. She said she was angry that the detective didn't clear the arrest with her in advance. (Blackburne was already notorious for recently releasing a man charged with attempting to kill a police officer, ruling that he had not received a speedy trial.)

Universal Health Care (for Prisoners): A judge in Wilmington, N.C., had to officially "release" accused murderer Shirley Spaulding in May, as a ploy, to get the state to start picking up her medical bills. Brunswick County was running out of money because it has paid nearly $400,000 to treat her respiratory illness while she awaits her death-penalty trial. (Fortunately, she was too sick to depart custody.)

Sentencing Nonsense: In December, a federal appeals court upheld Santos Reyes's 26-year prison sentence for the crime of trying to take the written portion of a driver's test for someone else (a sentence required by California's three-strikes law). And paroled sex offender Paul Frederick Goodwin, 39, of Melbourne, Fla., will be sentenced this month for purse-snatching; at his earlier parole hearing, Goodwin was so confident about going straight that he agreed that any further conviction of any kind would send him back to prison for 999 years. And in December, a Youth Court judge in Vancouver, British Columbia, went beyond guidelines to hard-sentence a now-19-year-old man for the fatal baseball-bat bludgeoning of a gay man; the hard sentence is two years in custody plus one under supervised release.

Teachers working on contract in California prisons sued the state in December over security restrictions that they say require them to deliver the curriculum standing outside inmates' cells (and in some cases, hollering the lessons through the meal tray slots, which are the only openings in solid steel doors). Said a prison official, downplaying the teachers' complAin'ts, "It's kind of like modified distance learning."