truTV: Not Reality. Actuality.

It's Good to Be a British Prisoner (continued): In June, Abu Qatada, a cleric described as one of Europe's most dangerous terror proselytizers, was released from jail, where he has been awaiting deportation (for three years) to Jordan and confined to his home in London. British courts refuse to deport him because, when Jordan tries him on serious terrorism charges, it might possibly use evidence obtained by torture of Abu Qatada's colleagues. Thus, he will remain in Britain, under heavy guard (estimated to cost the equivalent of $1 million a year), in his tax-abated home with his wife and five children, who receive the equivalent of about $90,000 a year in welfare benefits. (Abu Qatada himself receives the equivalent of $16,000 a year from the government, for a previous back injury.)

In July, convicted drug dealer Marcus Anderson opened the door of the Corrections Department van taking him to court, climbed out and walked away into downtown Baltimore. It was an ordinary van without a prisoner cage and whose driver had no gun, handcuffs, phone or radio (because Anderson had arrived late at the pick-up point for the regular prisoner van). An exasperated Judge Charles Bernstein later asked whether the driver had given him bus tokens, too. "If I were a young enterprising criminal," said the judge, "I'd come to Baltimore to set up my practice. This is the place to be. This is the Promised Land."

The June transfer of a prisoner from lockup to Britain's Northampton Crown Court, just across the street, required summoning the closest prison van (57 miles away) to come give him a ride. The prisoner (accused thief Mark Bailey) could not simply be walked across the street because officials feared that public, custodial exposure (a "perp walk") would embarrass him, in violation of his "human rights."

Paul Baldwin, 48, was ordered held on $10,000 bail in Portsmouth, N.H., in May after his arrest for stealing a can of beer, which seems expensive except that it was Baldwin's 152nd arrest. When a judge asked if he wanted a lawyer appointed for him, Baldwin said, "I don't need a lawyer. I've been in this court more than you have."

In the 1920s, when inmate "chain gangs" were in their heyday, Alabama sheriffs were allotted a prison meal budget of $1.75 per prisoner per day, with thrifty sheriffs allowed to pocket any excess for themselves. According to a May Associated Press investigation, the policy, and the amount, are unchanged to this day in 55 of the state's 67 counties, and also unchanged is the fact that sheriffs have cut the menus so cleverly or drastically that some sheriffs still make money on the deal. (The per-meal fee under the National School Lunch program for low-income students is $2.47.)

The U.S. military operates a beachfront vacation site for its personnel worldwide and their families at the Guantanamo Bay detention facility, with $42-a-night air-conditioned suites, surfing, boat rides, golf course, bowling alley and even a gift shop. One T-shirt for sale reads, "The Taliban Towers at Guantanamo Bay, the Caribbean's Newest 5-star Resort." News of the facility was not widely reported until a British lawyer who represents 28 of the nearly 300 detainees housed there described it to London's Daily Mail in May.