truTV: Not Reality. Actuality.

A 23-year-old inmate at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary was found beaten to death in March after being mistakenly assigned to the same cell as his ex-partner-in-crime, against whom he had testified in a 2002 murder trial.

Angel Galvan-Hernandez, 26, facing a long prison term after being convicted in a Seattle court, begged the judge in February to execute him, that he'd rather die "a thousand times" than be jailed. The reason, he said, was his fear of being raped in prison because of his petite frame and his history of being attacked as a youth. He admitted that he was a coward, "but I just don't want to be raped." His crime: He had pleaded guilty to raping two women. (He got 20 years.)

Jailers Not Paying Attention: Christian Colon, 21, had a plea deal worked out to testify against alleged murderer Joel Rivera in exchange for a lighter sentence, but suddenly decided in February that he would not take the stand. The change of heart came right after Colon was accidentally housed in the same Milwaukee County Jail holding cell with Rivera. (With no plea deal, Colon got 46 years.)

Scotland's Justice secretary similarly canceled a program in November after he learned that officials at Saughton prison in Edinburgh had set up poker classes, sanctioning games run on paper earnings (but which the inmates converted into real trades and favors). Said one astonished official, "Next thing, roulette wheels ... then a tap-dancing club ... because after this nothing would surprise us."

Blind Justice: An administrator of criminal-case appeals in Louisiana committed suicide in 2007, partly (according to his suicide note) because of guilt that, for 13 years, he had complied with a judge's order to deny, sight-unseen, all appeals filed by defendants who were acting without lawyers. (Under state law, only death row convicts get assistance for appeals; all others, even convicted murderers, either fend for themselves or forfeit the appeal right, no matter how indigent.) According to the administrator (the extent of whose claims are still being investigated by the state Supreme Court), none of the supervisory judges involved in denying the 2,400 appeals ever read a single word in them.

Britain's Prison Service issued guidelines recently calling for guards to refer to their male charges by "Mr." and their surnames, to foster "decency" and "respect." Inmates should be treated, said one official, "like (we expect) our children to be treated."