Prison Breakdown

60:15

Tim Allen Goes to Prison

Prison Breakdown ·

2025/04/07

Professor Beck Strah and Producer Brit discuss photo ops at foreign prisons, Tim Allen going to prison, and Take the Money and RUn (1969)

en-US

62:23

Hostage Situations (Pt. 2)

Prison Breakdown ·

2025/03/24

Professors Eric Bronson and Beck Strah discuss Bronson’s recent sick leave, an update to the New York Corrections Strike including a mass firing, hostage situations, including: a hostage situation in Arizona, the punitive nature of life sentences, a hostage situation in St. Louis, It Started With the Hats by Dr. Paul Joyce, and Nickel Boys (2024)

en-US

58:29

Hostage Situations (Pt. 1)

Prison Breakdown ·

2025/03/10

Professor Beck Strah and Producer Brit discuss post office politics, corrections strikes in New York, hostage situations in prison, the psychology of hostage takers, the duration of physical anger, hostage negotiators, negotiation tactics, and Megalopolis (2024)

en-US

57:26

Prison Break (2005) Episode 2

Prison Breakdown ·

2025/02/24

Professor Beck Strah and Producer Brit discuss the Western Society of Criminology Conference, spraying the vice president’s book with drugs, Prison Break Season 1 Episode 2, Milk Chicken, and We Need to Talk about Kevin (2011).

en-US

73:37

Purrrison Programs (Pt. 2)

Prison Breakdown ·

2025/02/10

Professors Eric Bronson and Beck Strah discuss inmate firefighters, cat prison programs, rodent control, cat emotions, spaying and neutering programs, screening for cat programs, and A Very Cool Christmas (2004)

en-US

60:02

Purrrison Programs (Pt. 1)

Prison Breakdown ·

2025/01/27

Professor Beck Strah and Producer Brit discuss top pies, death row inmates attempting to deny their commutations, prison cat programs, cat program backlash, stray cats, cat placement programs, and Christmas Mail (2010)

en-US

62:15

Pelican Bay State Prison

Prison Breakdown ·

2025/01/13

Professors Eric Bronson and Beck Strah discuss extrajudicial beatings to death, Pelican Bay State Prison, cell sizes and amenities, cuff ports, yard time, the California prison boom of the 70s, inmates covering themselves in feces, prison design and the Panopticon, the SHU, In the Place of Justice by Wilbert Rideau, and Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (2019)

en-US

75:17

Civil Commitment (feat. Sam Trieber)

Prison Breakdown ·

2024/12/31

Today Professor Beck Strah and Producer Brit are joined by Grad Student Sam Trieber to talk about Syrian prisons, opening up the institutions, early forms of civil commitment, predictive crime, expert witness disparities, using previous crimes in commission of civil commitment, psychiatric inmate release, civil commitment for sex offenders, addressing the roots of crime and mental health care, and The Fall Guy (2024).

en-US

78:37

Women in Prison (feat. Madison Rodriques)

Prison Breakdown ·

2024/12/17

Today Professor Beck and Producer Brit are joined by criminal justice grad student Madison Rodriques to talk about corn dogs, slapping therapy in prison, anti-women laws, pathways to prison for women, higher rates of mental illness in women’s prison populations, The Bangkok Rules, imprisoning children, state sexual assault, the First Step Act, menstrual products, inducing labor against will, forced sterilization, protecting women prisoners from sexual violence, and Prison of the Psychotic Damned

en-US

59:28

The Lucasville Prison Riot

Prison Breakdown ·

2024/12/02

Professor Bronson is out of the office! So Producer Brit steps in with Host Professor Beck Strah to talk about a $5.6 million dollar payout to the victim of an invasive search and the closure of a women’s prison, The Office, the Lucasville Prison Riot from 1993 including the incident that lead to a prolonged lockdown, Warden “King” Arthur Tate, harsh realities, outside protests, inmate unions, the prisoner’s demands, not killing COs, and the final settlement, and Ghostlight (2024).

en-US

64:34

CECOT (Centro de Confinamiento del Terrorismo)

Prison Breakdown ·

2024/11/18

Professors Eric Bronson and Beck Strah discuss weather control machines, presidential diet coke buttons, contraband drones, robots in prison, and CECOT Terrorism Confinement Center in El Salvador, including: the reasons for the prison, the prison population, the policies behind the prison, the successes of the prison, the failures of the prison, the architecture of the prison, the hooded guards, the food, and the future of the prison. Producer Brit watches Get the Gringo (2012) for Movie Minute.

en-US

98:04

Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola Prison Rodeo -...

Prison Breakdown ·

2024/11/04

We have guests! Professors Eric Bronson and Beck Strah interview students Caroline, Daniel, Emma, Pete about their visit to the Prison Rodeo at the Louisiana State Correctional Facility at Angola. They also discuss smuggling meth into prison, Beck spilling Gumbo on his pants, the ethics of the prison rodeo, Hurricanes, the rodeo fair, trustees, the violence of the rodeo, prison cats, and Condemned to Hell (1984).

en-US

89:50

Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola (The Farm) Part 2

Prison Breakdown ·

2024/10/21

Professors Eric Bronson and Beck Strah discuss their upcoming trip to the Prison Rodeo at Angola, 19 executions so far this year, bringing back the gas chamber, closure as a concept invented by media, leasing prisoners to private business, the Red Hat unit, inmates as guards, notable wardens, notable former inmates, record solitary confinement stays, Homelessness is a Housing Problem by Clayton Page Aldern and Gregg Colburn, new malls, Cain’s Redemption by Dennis Shere, and The Farm: Angola, USA

en-US

67:25

Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola (The Farm)

Prison Breakdown ·

2024/10/07

Professor Beck Strah and a healthy and returning Professor Eric Bronson discuss podcast tattoos, a stabbing incident at the Souza-Baranowski Correctional Center, correctional staff assaults, Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola (also known as “The Farm”), “Natural Life”, the electric chair, Utah’s death sentence options, Georgia bringing back the guillotine, Angola’s structure and layout, prison labor at Angola, the Angola prison magazine, Angola’s religious services, Angola-made coffins, the

en-US

72:07

Prison Break (2005) Episode 1

Prison Breakdown ·

2024/09/23

Professor Beck Strah and Producer Brit talk about Beck’s various jobs, Derek Chauvin news, and then they review the first episode of Prison Break from 2005 in which they discuss prison stores, murdering the vice president’s brother, conjugal visits, Stacy Keach, trash fires, gifts made with prison labor, dated effects, and Alien: Romulus (2024)

en-US

50:27

Alcatrazepember: The Battle of Alcatraz

Prison Breakdown ·

2024/09/09

Professor Beck Strah and Producer Brit ask is Eric the meat of our sandwich?, the fish sloppy joe challenge, the Stateville Correctional Center getting depopulated due to bad conditions, swimming the Alcatraz escape route, the big weird time out, the would-be escapees of the Battle of Alcatraz, The Battle of Alcatraz: the escape attempt, the officer resistance, and what went wrong. They also discuss the show Prison Break and Sharkansas Women’s Prison Massacre (2016) and doing your prison break in

en-US

83:17

Alcatrazgust Pt. 2: The Alcatragedy

Prison Breakdown ·

2024/08/26

Professors Eric Bronson and Beck Strah discuss energy drinks, Warheads, cruel and unusual lack of air conditioning in Texas prisons, the Birdman of Alcatraz, Al Capone, Machine Gun Kelly, Charles Manson’s Music, Doc Barker, Creepy Karpis, felons in marketing, The Jail: Managing the Underclass in American Society by John Keith Irwin, and Sharkansas Prison Massacre (2015).

en-US

47:33

Alcatrazgust Pt. 1: The Alcatrazening

Prison Breakdown ·

2024/08/12

Professors Beck Strah and Eric Bronson discuss an update to the story of Christopher Dunn, convicting the right person vs. convicting some person, the Alcatraz lighthouse, the discovery of Alcatraz, Millard [Mallard] Fillmore, the problems with making a wooden prison, Alcatraz’s relatively small capacity, the prison’s conditions and privileges, the economics of Alcatraz, the 1969 Indigenous Alcatraz Protests, Jack LaLanne’s handcuffed swim, and The Birdman of Alcatraz (1962)

en-US

72:50

The Mecklenburg Six

Prison Breakdown ·

2024/07/29

Today Professors Eric Bronson and Beck Strah discuss a Missouri prison ignoring a court order to release a wrongly-convicted inmate, the story of the Mecklenburg Six; six death row inmates who escaped a Virginia prison, keeping snakes as pets, prison control rooms, eating your way to a better sentence, bombs as escape mechanisms, Life as a Jailer: Through the Officers Eyes by Capt. Joe DeFranco and K9 Officer Tom Duncan, and Deathrow Gameshow (1987).

en-US

74:12

Magic in Prisons (Pt. 2)

Prison Breakdown ·

2024/07/15

Today Professors Eric Bronson and Beck Strah discuss a Wisconsin warden charged with the deaths of inmates, incarcerated former LEOs and COs, therapy through magic, interrupting division via magic, the limitations of magic in real life interventions, magic as an introduction to cognitive behavioral therapy, Magic the Gathering in prison, magician criminals, and Derek DelGuado’s In and Of Itself (2020).

en-US

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