Aspiring writer James Franco is not afraid of jail. He has his time all planned out.

A group of four prisoners at a work release center in Australia's Berrimah jail are suspected of repeatedly sneaking out to get drunk and high, then breaking back in before correctional officers noticed.

A very haggard-looking Shia LaBeouf was released from jail this morning, hours after he was dragged from a performance of Cabaret and arrested. LaBeouf pleaded not guilty to two charges of criminal trespass and one charge disorderly conduct.

Around 8 p.m. last night, three inmates at the Orsainville Detention Centre outside of Quebec City fled the jail as they were whisked away by a green helicopter that had touched down on the property. This counts as the second time this kind of escape has happened in Canada in only two years.

Los Angeles law enforcement agencies have had more than their share of scandals. Still, testimony coming about about the behavior of the Los Angeles Sheriff's Department is shocking.

Celebrity domestic abuser Chris Brown was released from jail Monday morning. Brown, famous for punching people in the face, was serving time for punching a man in the face last October. Brown, who also sings, was originally ordered to enter rehab, but was jailed in May after refusing to submit to a drug test.

Two airport employees who used the confusion of the Asiana Airlines crash last summer as an opportunity to steal luggage from airline passengers are now headed to jail.

A former combat Marine says he shouldn't be languishing in a Tijuana jail for crossing the Mexican border with three guns, because it was all a mistake: He was heading for a night out with his buddies in California, missed the last highway exit, and ended up Mexico-bound.

Police say a group of Ohio inmates managed to overtake one of their guards and are currently holding him hostage inside the jail facility.

What does T H E F U T U R E hold for us? If we are lucky, it holds unspeakably horrible new punishment technology. Aeon Magazine explores the future of jailing:

Charlene Ellet made headlines last week after a shoplifting arrest turned into a possession-of-meth arrest which somehow culminated in her and her brother making out in jail. Now Ellet's back behind bars, this time for choking her husband (who is not her brother).

A homeless man died just steps away from a Mojave Desert jail early Wednesday, after being released by sheriff's deputies who reportedly decided "he was able to care for himself."

A 29-year-old University of Minnesota graduate has been locked up in a Dubai prison since April for making a parody YouTube video about teaching residents of a Satwa, wealthy neighborhood, how to fight. In the video, they learn to throw shoes and call for help over Twitter.

A new ACLU report estimates that more than 17,000 juveniles in America have been held in solitary confinement, and concludes, unequivocally, "Solitary confinement and isolation are not safe for children."

James "Jimmy Henchman" Rosemond, a hip hop promotor and major cocaine distributor suspected of having a hand in multiple rap controversies including the 1994 Tupac shooting, was sentenced to life in prison yesterday.

Jesse Jackson Jr. almost had to sell off his sweet precious mink furs and Michael Jackson memorabilia last month, and October isn't shaping up to be his month either — the former Congressman has to sell his $1.3 million Washington D.C. home to settle a $750,000 forfeiture judgement before he goes to jail for a two-and-a-half-year sentence.

Housing a single inmate in a New York City jail for one year costs more than four years of tuition at Harvard University.

Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, one of the two Pussy Riot members still in a Russian prison for the crime of "hooliganism motivated by religious hatred," is on hunger strike starting today in order to protest her living conditions. In a lengthy open letter to the Guardian explaining her strike, Tolokonnikova claims that the first year in her two-year sentence has been hellish, beginning with the head administrator of her penal colony telling her upon arrival: "You should know that when it comes to politics, I am a Stalinist."

Hard to believe this plan went awry: In an misguided attempt to smuggle drugs inside, a Washington man fired an arrow wrapped with a bag of weed and an unidentified substance at the second floor screen of the Whatcom County jail's recreation area on Tuesday morning. The man, of course, missed his target, and the arrow landed on the prison's roof, where it was quickly discovered.

New York City spent $167,000 on each one of its more than 12,000 jail inmates last year. Too bad there is no better use for that money in the whole wide world.