Beautiful ain't it? Too bad it's probably full of poo. Photo via flikr user davebloggs007

Imagine the next time you're in Niagara Falls for a weekend of drunken gambling that instead of fresh, blue water, the massive falls are just spewing raw sewage, a gentle mist of poop water tickling your face.

It's not that impossible since last year, more than 205 billion litres of raw sewage and untreated water entered Canada's oceans and waterways, the CBC reports.

Syringes, tampon applicators, rubber material, and toilet paper are just some of the items commonly found on the shores of coastal cities in provinces such as Manitoba, Newfoundland, and British Columbia. Signs warning patrons of contaminated waters can be found in Montreal and along the LaHave River in Nova Scotia.

While the former Conservative government introduced new regulations in 2012 to help curb the problem, new figures show that it's actually increased by 1.9 percent since 2014, or roughly the equivalent of "82,255 Olympic-size swimming pools" worth of shit.

Several factors have been cited as potentially contributing to the issue, including lack of provincial funding to climate change. Improper data reporting, heavy rainfall, and poor and aging infrastructures were also cited.

"Our aging waste water infrastructure," Green Party leader Elizabeth May told the CBC, "was designed for a different climate, and for many municipalities across Canada, when you have a deluge rain event your sewage treatment bypasses the sewage plant and goes right downstream."

Untreated waste is cited as one of the biggest sources of pollution in Canada, and the Liberal government has pledged to protect freshwater resources and invest in waste water management, although critics say their pledge is for an insignificant amount.

Federal Environment Minister Catherine McKenna noted that: "The regulations were brought in by the previous government. There weren't the investments required for municipalities to update their waste water systems. So that's why we are seeing these dumps," and has said that the Liberal's have "committed to investing $2 billion specifically for waste water upgrades."

The Federation of Canadian Municipalities (FCM) claims that amount is not sufficient to provide the upgrades necessary to combat the problem, estimating the cost to be around $18 billion.

Peter Kent, former Environment minister for the Conservative government, claimed that at the time that the regulations were introduced, the government did make funds available and that municipalities chose instead to use the money for roads.

Environment Canada noted that better reporting in 2014 and 2015 helped explain some of the increases in untreated waste, while May stresses the importance of continuing to closely monitor the results.

Follow Lisa Power on Twitter.

Former prime minister David Cameron and Lord Ashdown helping to campaign for a Remain vote in the EU referendum. Photo by Stefan Rousseau PA Wire/PA Images

This post originally appeared on VICE UK.

If you've been listening carefully this year, you might have heard a gentle, regular sound in the background of world events, the sound of rakes slapping people in the face. And not just anyone: The lauded and powerful—our liberal political elite, the very best among us—have spent the whole of 2016 vigorously pummeling themselves, striding blindly into rake after rake after rake.

The far-right victories of this year—Brexit, Trump, all those now-dull and familiar horrors—are mostly being treated as something that just happened, an inexplicable seepage of bile bubbling out from under the ground. A few people are still pointing out that the liberal order set the stage for this kind of response: Wherever the far-right wins, it's because mainstream politics have failed; people voted for Trump and Brexit because decades of callous and indifferent centrist administration had made life so stupid and miserable that any change, even total destruction, would be preferable.

But this is also true on a far more basic level. Politicians didn't just set the stage for the far-right surge—they actively encouraged it at every turn, thinking they could twist it to their own advantage and come away unscathed. Every time some gang of witless, terrifying Poujadists ends up steering another country into a lake, the proximal cause is always the same: one puffed up politician and their very clever plan. This year, 2016, was the one in which all the very clever plans stopped working.

Representative democracy was—for its founding ideologues, like John Stuart Mill—supposed to put a barrier between the unenlightened mob and the levers of power; the general desire for brutish and unacceptable things like communal ownership and not being mangled to death in some vast hellish industrial machinery would be safely abstracted away by the ranks of parliamentary representatives drawn from a better class. Better because the upper classes respond to "wise and noble things"—high art, the classics, the great tradition of Culture with a capital C. On reflection, this hasn't really worked out.

We still have a democratic elite that stifles the population in its own name, but instead of constipated old Latin orators, they seem to get most of their worldview from TV boxsets. David Cameron loves Game of Thrones. Barack Obama loves House of Cards. These shows present a world of intrigue and power play, long and careful plots in which our heroic sociopaths bring everything together to undermine their enemies. And on TV they tend to work. It's not impossible to imagine that there's a mimetic effect at work—that our elected representatives, watching all this cleverness and skulduggery on their screens late at night, were stupid enough to decide that maybe they should try it out themselves. After all, the global ruling class has turned itself into an army of shit Baldricks, thinking up endless cunning plans to improve their own personal fortunes and every time unleashing utter chaos. And we're the ones suffering the consequences.

Take Brexit. The most significant decision in postwar British history wasn't taken out of the genuine desire to let the British people decide their own constitutional future; nobody in politics wants that, however much they occasionally pretend to. It was a cynical little scheme on the part of David Cameron. He promised a referendum on EU membership to get what he wanted out of two different groups of people he had to pretend not to hate: the Eurosceptic backbenchers in his own party and the general public. The idea was that by making that promise he could whip up enough anti-European fervor among the electorate to give himself a second term in 2015, but not quite enough that they'd actually vote us out. This way, the issue would be put to rest forever, and he could carry on with his important work of emitting strange plumy choking noises unperturbed, going down in the history books as Britain's milkiest Machiavelli.

It didn't work. Of course, it didn't work. It's hard to think of a stupider plan: "First, I'll just reach in and pull my legs out; now I'll pull my arms out with my face." He thought the British people were infinitely malleable and infinitely stupid, that he could arrange them on his big and complicated chessboard, and they'd do whatever he told them to. He was wrong.

The same thing happened in the US. From the moment Trump announced his candidacy—actually, before he even went public—the Clinton campaign was working out its fiendishly complex plot. Trump was seen as a golden opportunity for Clinton, a candidate so gimmicky and divisive that a weary public would have no choice but to vote for her. As leaked emails show, they did everything possible to make sure that he was the Republican nominee, dignifying his candidacy every time she responded to him, turning the election into Trump vs. Clinton long before all the other possibilities had exhausted themselves. In other words, they considered Trump so unelectable that they helped him win, without any thought for the millions of marginalized people who were left at risk of violence by his rise.

And even once a Trump victory came charging out of the realm of fantasy and started to appear as a genuine possibility, they were still playing clever House of Cards–style tricks. They openly announced how clever they'd been in diverting Trump's resources away from battleground states to the Republican heartland, and all the while traditionally left-leaning states were falling away from them. When private polling showed that Trump might actually win in key Midwestern states, they didn't send a Clinton campaign there. Instead, they hatched a very clever plan: By not campaigning there, they'd make Trump's strategists think the Republicans had no chance of winning, so they wouldn't campaign either, and then Clinton would win. She lost.

You'd think people would learn, but politicians have decided for themselves that they're very smart people, and it seems that no number of rakes to the face will convince them otherwise.

And they're still at it: Just in the last few weeks, British politician Zac Goldsmith hatched a very clever plan to resign his seat in protest at plans to expand Heathrow, and then be carried triumphantly back to Westminster by the grateful Heathrow-haters of his constituency. It was clear from his bizarre and racist mayoral campaign that he didn't really understand London, but as it turns out, he doesn't even understand Richmond: Instead of doing exactly what he told them to, his neighbors summarily turfed him out of Parliament, overturning a Tory majority of 23,000 to announce their unhappiness with Brexit.

Meanwhile, in Italy, Prime Minister Matteo Renzi wanted to push forward a raft of unpopular neoliberal reforms that had little chance of making it through parliament, so he very cleverly decided to drastically reshape parliament—there would have to be a referendum, but he could make it so abstract and boring that nobody would bother opposing him. He didn't understand that people are free to interpose their own meanings into these things, and that they tend to dislike the idea of an oily twerp in a tie cleverly manipulating them to get what he wants.

These people have never understood: The more you deny people agency, the more they'll fight for it, even if that means choosing the stupidest possible option as an empty signal of defiance. Look forward to more of the same in 2017: the patter of rakes against faces growing into a cacophony, thudding across the world—blundering stupidity as the only form of political action from every social sector, the birth of a hideous new evil tearing itself free from the world in a storm of blood, and all because a few Netflix addicts can't admit that they're not as smart as they think they are.

Follow Sam Kriss on Twitter.

The whole thing streams this Friday and looks like another fast-paced thriller from Batmanglij, whose previous effort with Marling, The East, was inspired by their months as freegans. Hopefully the full series lives up to the trailer's promise of a starker Stranger Things, minus the adorable children.

Photo courtesy of VICELAND

In 2010, 47-year-old Bernard Noble was arrested by two cops in New Orleans for possession of a bag containing a little less than three grams of marijuana. He was subsequently sentenced to 13 ⅓ years in prison under Louisiana law, a substantial sentence for a nonviolent offense.

Earlier this year, Weediquette host Krishna Andavolu investigated Noble's story, as well as discriminatory legal practices toward African Americans regarding marijuana-related offenses at-large. This week, Noble's ongoing saga took a positive turn: A district attorney agreed to reduce his sentence to eight years and give him parole eligibility, meaning he'll likely be out of jail by 2018.

We caught up with Andavolu to talk about the specifics of Noble's case, as well as what's next and what it means for sentencing for marijuana-related offenses in the future.

VICE: Walk us through what's happened to Bernard Noble up to this week's court decision.
Krishna Andavolu: In 2010, Bernard Noble was arrested for possessing 2.8 grams of marijuana—about two joints' worth. He had prior convictions, so he was sentenced under mandatory minimum drug sentencing laws in Louisiana. His case has been seen as demonstrative of the excesses of the war on drugs and how it overreaches in regard to punitive measures. Every element of his story elucidates the sort of indignities and injustices of the war on drugs in each case—and his arrest was a racially motivated stop. It's a really extreme case, and it's really maddening to know that a person is in jail for such a minor offense for such a long period of time. It's demonstrative of the larger problem of racially motivated mass incarceration, and how the war on drugs has devalued and dehumanized citizens of this country.

Why was Noble's sentence reduced now?
Bernard's lawyer from the Orleans Parish Public Defender's Office has been negotiating with the DA over the last year or so for a revised sentence. The DA has been really aggressive over Bernard's sentencing, so the softening is a testament to the coverage of the case: The more people know about it, the more outrage is directed at that office and the district attorney. It's Louisiana, so they're still a punitive state—they're the capital of mass incarceration for the country, perhaps the world. So the fact that this is happening, even though he's not out of prison yet, is a remarkable occurrence. Moreover, his family is thrilled, and it gives hope for him to get through the next couple years.

What does this specific case say about changing attitudes toward marijuana in America?
Not much. There's a new governor of Louisiana—a Democrat—so perhaps there's a bit of a tone change from the top down. But it's still Louisiana. Weed is not legal there, and it probably won't be for a very long time. This is more of a testament to how advocacy and shining a light on individual stories that are unacceptable can actually produce change over time. It's one guy, he's going to get out soon, and he's not yet released—but it's about chipping away at the edifice of shitty practices and injustice.

Do you think progress will continue to be made in regard to sentencing and the treatment of nonviolent drug offenders?
As far as letting people out of the system who are in there for marijuana, there's a few statutes. California's Prop 64 language has a stipulation for releasing prisoners who are there for possession. There's still no avenue for that to actually happen, but there's this nebulous idea that people should be let out of prison for things that are now legal. The path forward is pretty unclear, though.

You can catch Weediquette on VICELAND. Find out how to watch here.

Photo: Jake Lewis, via "I Tried Every Legal High Left On the Market"

Last year, we discovered that the British take more MDMA in one sitting than people of any other nationality. We also found out that 2015 was the worst time in recent history to use the drug, thanks to stronger and therefore more dangerous pills being introduced to the market.

Away from the sort of drugs that make you want to take a bath with a stranger, it was also revealed that synthetic cannabinoids—i.e. Spice, i.e. the stuff former prisoners are hiding inside themselves while re-offending so they can be sent back inside and sell the stuff for profit—is the substance most likely to land you in the hospital, while vegans using NOS might be more susceptible when it comes to developing nerve damage than anyone else huffing on balloons.

How did we discover all of this? Because the Global Drug Survey (which is exactly what it sounds like: a survey of drug users across the globe) got more than 100,000 people to tell them how and when they use drugs, turned all the data from those respondents into Actually Interesting Snippets of Information, and released all that information to the world.

This year they're doing exactly the same thing, with a focus on a few particular topics: medicinal cannabis, drug vaping, and whether or not psychedelics really can change your world. As in: Did you actually develop an extrasensory perception for the energy given off by that wheat field, or were you just extremely fucked?

The survey is completely anonymous and open to anyone over the age of 16. If you want to get involved and help the experts better understand how we as a planet use drugs, head to the official site and click through the questions.

Female inmates in the Rikers Island nursery program play basketball as their babies nap nearby in the 1990s. Photo by Evy Mages/NY Daily News Archive via Getty Images

While working at the New York City Department of Correction in the mid 1990s, part of my job as deputy commissioner for programs consisted of visiting the various jails on Rikers Island. I would often go weeks without seeing the same facility twice, so I was struck by the number of incarcerated men, women, and teenagers I recognized and spoke with over and over again. That observation and those interactions were my first window into understanding the disruptive impact incarceration has on the lives of people across America.

In the popular imagination, jail is often thought of as a temporary and relatively harmless holding facility where people spend a brief amount of time before their cases are resolved in local courts. In reality, it is all too often a quagmire of indefinite detention where marginalized individuals linger because their friends and family can't afford bail. And when they are eventually released, many find they have lost their jobs due to employers who cannot or will not await the outcomes of court cases.

Today, as the director of the Center on Sentencing and Corrections at the Vera Institute of Justice, I am working to advance criminal justice reform nationally by working directly with state and local agencies to reduce the flow of people into the system as well as improving the conditions of confinement, with a focus on human dignity and preparing individuals to succeed when they return to their communities.

But back when I was helping to develop educational, substance abuse, and employment-training programs on Rikers, it was a challenge to get them off the ground. Budget officials and others I worked with argued against investing in programming out of the misguided belief that people aren't there long enough to actually benefit from such initiatives.

That belief likely stemmed from the somewhat misleading existing data on the average length of stay in the jail, which seemed to mask what I was seeing with my own eyes—that many pre-trial individuals were on Rikers for lengthy periods of time. While it's true that the average length of stay in NYC jails is about 55 days, the number is misleading because it includes people discharged on the same day. An incarcerated person who stays overnight typically spends an average of 176 days in a cell, according to testimony from the DOC commissioner, Joseph Ponte, last year.

These findings have served as ammunition in garnering the support for and implementing a range of programs on Rikers, often in partnership with community-based organizations from the same neighborhoods participants once called home. While providing quality programs in jails is in no way a substitute for addressing significant issues, such as the use of money bail, unduly long case processing times, and general over-incarceration, that experience instilled in me a belief that incarceration should prepare people to succeed when they get back home.

Still, in order to successfully lobby for and make those changes, we need a better understanding of what is happening inside America's more than 5,100 jails and prisons, starting with a deeper look at the lengths of stay.

The appetite for reform today is the greatest I've seen in my 25 years working in criminal justice, and that appetite won't dissipate following the recent election results, despite the campaign's law-and-order rhetoric. The fact that our prison system has grown too big is almost universally acknowledged, and lawmakers and advocates from across the political spectrum have been calling to dramatically decrease the number of people we lock up. Importantly, in the last couple of years, reform efforts have begun to focus on the overuse and misuse of local jails, a key area in understanding and addressing mass incarceration.

If these efforts to implement reforms—such as ending the over-policing of minor offenses, increasing diversion opportunities, improving conditions behind bars, and easing reentry—are successful, and we are able to return to the incarceration rates of several decades ago (about one-seventh of our current rate), many prisons and jails will close. But what should the ones that remain look like? Why do we send people there? We need to look at these questions with fresh eyes. Without answering them, any de-carceration efforts will be incomplete.

One essential aspect to rethink is the disconnect between correctional institutions and communities. Nearly half of all prisons in America were built between 1986 and 2006, during the incarceration boom of the 80s and 90s. And they were built largely in small, rural towns that could accommodate them physically and benefit from them economically. When people are sentenced to prison, keeping them connected to their families is not considered a priority, and many end up serving their time hundreds of miles away from home, despite research showing that those who receive regular visits are less likely to reoffend. This isolation is not only a punishment for incarcerated individuals, but also their families, who shoulder the burden of often expensive and difficult travel. Furthermore, these towns often don't have community-based programs that can provide rehabilitation services.

But the relationship between correctional institutions and communities isn't just about geographic distance. Even when they are within the communities they serve, local jails can still be almost impossible to access. Rikers, which is inside New York City yet extremely remote to all five boroughs, is a good example. And many jails have harmful policies like limited visiting hours or replacing in-person visitation with video, which can make incarcerated people feel more cut-off from family and society than necessary.

Watch Kingsley Rowe talk about his journey from incarceration on a murder charge to being a professional criminal justice advocate.

These physical and logistical barriers to correctional facilities help create an "out-of-sight, out-of-mind" mentality in larger society. Prisons and jails, even those in our own backyards, remain largely unknown to people whose lives have not been touched directly by incarceration. To those who have not experienced jail—or even to those who have but could afford bail—it makes sense to think of jail as a short-term problem. That's simply not the case for many Americans, and the problems that started with their arrest extend beyond cellblocks into the hurdles they face in finding employment and a stigma that perpetuates their isolation. As recidivism rates show, these issues are working to fuel incarceration, not improve our communities.

If we were to rebuild our criminal justice system from scratch, what would we want the goal of incarceration to be? And what would that mean for the relationship between facilities and communities? We're asking those questions now as part of Vera's Reimagining Prison initiative, which is developing a new vision for incarceration in the United States, one that situates human dignity at its philosophical and operational core. To do so, we're looking at promising practices—including international examples—that create safe and humane prisons and jails, and seeking input from a wide range of justice system stakeholders, people who have been incarcerated, and the general public. As part of this initiative, Vera organized the first ever National Prison Visiting Week this past month by partnering with state corrections agencies and local jurisdictions, as well as the Federal Bureau of Prisons, to open up prisons and jails in 17 geographically and politically diverse states. By bringing ordinary citizens into the mix, many of whom have never been inside a cell, we aim to increase the visibility of the problem, create awareness of conditions of confinement, and encourage transparency in a new era of incarceration.

Shifting the culture of incarceration from one that prioritizes retribution and isolation to one that prepares people for success on return—including maintaining their connections to their community—is a philosophically novel approach. But this transformation will require a substantial culture change for all Americans, not just those working on the front lines of reform. A reimagined incarceration system in the United States not only means a drastically smaller footprint, but one in which transparency, proximity, accountability, and community engagement are some of its key hallmarks.

If we are serious about ending mass incarceration and closing some of the thousands of prisons and jails America has built in the past few decades, we first need to open their doors and begin to think of them as part of our communities.

Check out Benji Nate's website, Instagram, and Twitter.

York University student Mandi Gray was raped by fellow student Mustafa Ururyar. Photo Alyson Hardwick for VICE News

York University announced on Monday that it has reached a settlement with sexual assault survivor Mandi Gray over an application she had filed with the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario (HRTO) in June 2015.

The complaint came after an incident in January 2015 when Gray was attacked by fellow student Mustafa Ururyar. She claimed that the university lacked proper procedures for reporting sexual assault.

Ururyar was convicted in a criminal court in September and is currently appealing his conviction.

The statement from the university states that: "Although the parties were unable to reach an agreement on many issues, part of the resolution of the HRTO Application is that the University will collaborate with sexual assault centres to provide specialized counselling to sexual violence survivors from the York community."

The university introduced new guidelines in September aimed at better responding to reports of sexual assault, but Gray has said that the changes are largely symbolic. Collaborations between the university and campus groups like Silence is Violence will be ongoing.

Gray, a current PhD student, told The Toronto Star that she couldn't comment directly on the settlement, but said: "There are definitely more changes that are needed."

Follow Lisa Power on Twitter

Thumbnail photo courtesy Orange County Archives.

Though it's lingered in the air for some time, serious talk of a California secession has ramped up after the 2016 US election. Late last month, supporters submitted a ballot measure to the state's attorney general, hoping to see a vote on this so-called "Calexit" in 2018. Although secession from the Union is likely a pipe dream (none of the options are very viable), it wouldn't be the first time folks around those parts withdrew from the country and made up their own nation.

It all took place 166 years ago in a small town 62 miles northeast of Sacramento called Rough and Ready. As with most of the towns in that region, its origins involve a group of dudes looking to strike it rich. In this case, it was a gang of about 40 miners who, in 1849, made the trek from Shellsburg, Wisconsin to chase the gold vein that was famously struck nearby at Sutter's Mill. This motley crew was led by Captain A.A. Townsend, who'd served under then-President Zachary Taylor during the Mexican War in a series of battles wherein Taylor had earned the nickname "Rough and Ready." Townsend co-opted the name for his mining contingent, which in turn became the name of the town.

Rough and Ready was a booming find. One account claims the discovery of a gold nugget weighing eighteen pounds, and the town's Chamber of Commerce says the area soon exploded to a population above 3,000 in the months after the initial strike. As you'd expect, the region's unsettled nature led to an aura of chaos around the digs. As Michael J. Trinklein writes in Lost States: True Stories of Texlahoma, Transylvania, and Other States That Never Made It, "in the era of the California Gold Rush, pretty much anything was possible." Trinklein compares the Gold Rush crew to the party fraternity in Animal House, where young men without the "usual authorities" of pastors, wives, or official government were allowed to roam chaotically unchecked in the western wilderness.

In early 1850, though, that came to an end. California state government was imposing a tax on all mining claims, and taxes—as remains the case—weren't all that popular. So on April 7th, 1850, just a few short months before California would be admitted into U.S. statehood, the town's residents met and proposed a secession from California and the burgeoning United States, effectively forming its own independent republic. The group elected Colonel E.F. Brundage as the new President, who issued the new republic's manifesto: "We...deem it necessary and prudent to withdraw from said Territory (of California) and from the United States of America to form, peacefully if we can, forcibly if we must, the Great Republic of Rough and Ready."

Detailed in its subsequent official Constitution—which was essentially a copy-and-paste job of the U.S. version, even including the "life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness" line—the borders of the new republic would be: "hat portion of Nevada County within the Sovereign Territory of California, laying west of Nevada and Grass Valley Townships, having the South Yuba River as its northerly boundary, Bear River on the southerly side, and the marked line of Yuba County in the West." In all, it contained upwards of two hundred square miles of land.

The decree wasn't met with volleys of gunfire or a congregation of mounted troops sent to bring the traitors to justice. By all accounts, the California government met the mutiny with a collective yawn, so the region stayed its own peaceful nation-state—for about three months.

Fourth of July was just around the corner, and this was an era when parties celebrating the day were huge. Every mining town that was already drowning in whiskey, gambling, and prostitutes kicked its debauchery up a notch on the nation's designated birthday. The miners now living in the Great Republic of Rough and Ready had gotten used to these festivities, and frankly, it didn't seem right to be celebrating if they weren't part of the country anymore.

Of perhaps more urgent importance, however, was that saloons in the nearby towns of Grass Valley and Nevada City—both still firmly entrenched in California—had refused to sell alcohol to the "foreigners" from Rough and Ready. This didn't sit well with the town, which was mostly composed of hard-drinking German Lutherans from Wisconsin. Having to pay taxes was a drag, but not being able to score a drink was hell.

On the morning of July 4th, 1850, Rough and Ready's elite members returned into a meeting and voted to immediately rejoin California, who welcomed the town back. A murky technicality discovered by the U.S. Postal service shortly after World War II showed the town had never been readmitted to the union, and therefore had been operating as a "rogue state" for nearly a century.

Now, there's not much left to the town (see the video above). It claims a population of 963, nearly all of whom show up on the last Sunday of every June for the the town's Secession Days celebration. It features old-timey music, a classic pancake breakfast, and a musical reenactment of those secessionist days of yore called "The Saga of Rough and Ready." The folks of Rough and Ready never could say no to a kickass party.

Follow Rick Paulas on Twitter.

Saskatoon is worried about its "perceived safety" from panhandlers, even though there have not been any reported cases of problems. Photo via The Canadian Press.

It's a cold day in Saskatoon.

That cursing-aloud-at-fellow-pedestrians-in-shared-concession-that-you-made-a-mistake-leaving-the-house brand of cold that is particular to the Prairies. For a few hours, I've been ducking in and out of businesses downtown in the core of Saskatoon's densest panhandling hub. So far, I've only seen one man at it. A long-haired man in a thin jacket, sitting on a chunk of cardboard. He's accumulated a few bucks of pocket change in a ball cap by his feet. I deliberately keep walking past him, to see if his level of aggressiveness is comparable to that which I've shown random Christmas shoppers passing by. Not once does he so much as lift his head from being burrowed in his jacket.

Perhaps today is a bad acid test. Because Saskatoon has a panhandling problem. They're too aggressive. They operate in packs. They're a threat to public safety.

At least that's the general perception motivating city administration to push for bylaw changes.

Last year, a committee in Saskatoon made up of business improvement agencies and police came up with a report to revise bylaws in order to remedy an alleged panhandling problem. The report, which cites "health and safety" as its top priorities, recommended banning panhandling while "not stationary," and restricting panhandling within 10 meters of any theatre, gallery, venue, parking pay station, and any business licensed to serve alcohol. City bylaws already restrict "coercive" panhandling, as well as panhandling in front of banks, ATMs, bus stops and liquor stores. One doesn't have to be familiar with Saskatoon to accurately assume these restrictions would essentially seal off the majority of downtown. Last week, city administration, pausing only on the stationary and alcohol related stipulations, recommended City Council adopt the revised bylaws.

Encouragingly, new and improved Mayor, Charlie Clark, and Councillor Hilary Gough, were less than impressed with the city's recommendation.

How to enforce these proposed changes remains uncertain, conceivably police officers will be issued a municipal measuring tape in their belt holsters. But, as the majority of panhandlers in the city represent visible minorities, it's clear policing would require a higher degree of racial profiling. "The goal people don't want to be bothered and disturbed," says Norman.

"The courts said the bylaw is justifiable because it's not aimed at silencing, it's aimed at keeping the streets safe. Legislation calls "safe streets" as if one were talking about harm here. It's not about harm. It's about people who would really just rather it just go away and avoid the harder questions."

As for the present situation in Saskatoon, the harm squares itself on the panhandlers. "This bylaw is going to get people hurt," Jason Mercredi told me, a support services worker with AIDS Saskatoon who works on the ground level with the panhandling community. "They're going to be pushing them to less travelled areas at night. People assume it's the violence panhandlers doing the public. Studies show it's actually the opposite."

Meanwhile, there's radio silence from these marginalized voices, who the general public seems to deem, at the very least, an inconvenience. The Safe Street Acts fail to address why panhandlers might feel more desperate. It's cosmetic, rather than focusing on the social determinant behind why people are sitting, or God forbid, moving with their hand out.

"Of course we want safe streets. Who wouldn't want that? It's an easy sell to call it a safe street act or bylaw. It's a kind of cover which plays into our perceptions," says Norman.

"We live, thank goodness, in a free society where discomfort doesn't get to be criminalized."

At least for now.

Image by Matthew James-Wilson

Most mornings these days, I wake up, check the weather, scan my emails, and then look at Donald Trump's Twitter. This is mildly embarrassing but seems like a requirement for political journalists, or even just people who follow politics closely—a few tweets from the president-elect can influence the course of cable news and op-ed sections, or even be news in and of themselves. Trump engages with Twitter not in the bland, on-message manner of a regular politician; he uses the microblog like a squid uses ink, spraying out tweets to confuse, to obfuscate, or just because he's feeling threatened. This, as they say, is not normal. And the media, not to mention the rest of America, has yet to figure out the question that confronts anyone dealing with a troll: Is this guy joking?

Once upon a time, celebrities—and presidents are nothing if not celebrities—would have to interact with the media in order to get their message out. That era of trading access for a platform is over. Actors can tease projects with an Instagram post, athletes can write their own articles over at the Players' Tribune, members of Congress can issue statements to the press and the public simultaneously over Facebook. In that sense, Trump's use of Twitter is just a continuation of a trend. And on Facebook, the entity "Donald J. Trump" is what you'd expect from a public figure: photos of rallies, clips of interviews, links to articles about what a great guy he is. That's basically what you'll find on Barack Obama's page, too. We're so used to on-brand messaging it barely registers as background noise. A politician's interviews, speeches, social media presence, and policies are seamlessly integrated as a matter of course. For example, Obama's signature accomplishment is the Affordable Care Act; he cares a great deal about the ACA, so he talks about it a lot on social media and in front of audiences.

The Twitter entity @realDonaldTrump does not follow those rules. He uses Twitter like you or I do, which is to say badly—he'll tweet about whatever is catching his eye at any given moment. Sometimes, this correlates with what his spokespeople are saying. At other moments, he'll seem to contradict them, making it unclear what he and his team are actually doing. And often he is just—I don't know another phrase for it—talking out of his ass.

As a channel for information about the world, or even what Trump the person thinks, @realDonaldTrump is garbage. Just after the election the account was complaining about protesters and praising them in the span of 24 hours. On November 22, Trump canceled and uncanceled a meeting with the New York Times via Twitter in a single morning. Right next to the contradictions are the lies, like when @realDonaldTrump said the Times had "sent a letter to their subscribers apologizing for their BAD coverage of me" (it hadn't), or when he took credit for keeping a Ford plant in Kentucky, even though the plant was never moving. Other categories of tweets include his complaints of bias (Saturday Night Live is a frequent target, as is CNN) and source-free assertions of plots against him (see his idea that "millions of people" voted illegally, or the allegation that there was "serious voter fraud" in several states). Most jarringly, sometimes @realDonaldTrump contradicts Trump's own spokesperson, like when he denounced a CNN report that he'll be working on The Apprentice in his spare time as "ridiculous & untrue - FAKE NEWS!" Except that CNN report came from a direct quote given by Trump's former campaign manager Kellyanne Conway.

What do you do when the guy who's about to be president tweets things that are unreliable, self-contradictory, or flat-out untrue? One option would be to ignore them—a number of people on the left have suggested that Trump uses @realDonaldTrump's silliness as a distraction from the real Donald Trump's more nefarious activities, namely the potential conflicts of interest stemming from his international real estate business.

Unfortunately, unlike most of the angry men on Twitter, @realDonaldTrump can't be ignored. What may seem like an off-the-cuff fit of pique might actually be a signal of Trump's changing priorities or a new policy direction. On November 29, @realDonaldTrump tweeted that people who burned the American flag should be punished by losing their citizenship or be sent to jail, even though the Supreme Court has previously ruled that flag burning is constitutionally protected speech. That tweet seemed like a passing thought brought on by cable news, but in the days since Trump has continued to criticize flag burning—so, is Trump going to push for restrictions on this traditional form of protest? Does he actually hate to see the flag in flames? Or, in true reality star form, is he just saying whatever gets the biggest reaction?

There are plenty of other cases where @realDonaldTrump's habitual hyperbole blur together with Trump's actual agenda. The tweet about how the Somali refugee suspected of the stabbing attack at Ohio State "should not have been in our country" dovetails with the Republican Party's harsh anti-refugee views. @realDonaldTrump's petty singling out of an Indiana union boss led to the man receiving threatening phone calls, but it was of a piece with the incoming Trump administration's hostility to unions. A recent tweet calling for a 35 percent tariff on companies that leave the US seems to be a reflection of Trump's deeply held commitment to keeping manufacturing jobs in America by any means necessary. And @realDonaldTrump seemed serious when he criticized the costs of a new Air Force One jet and an F-35 program—at least, the markets took him seriously, as stock prices of Boeing and Lockheed Martin (the companies with those government contracts) took a tumble.

But that seemed in "seemed serious" is doing a whole lot of work. If there's anything to be learned from sifting through Trump's tweets, it's that he enjoys fucking with people: On Sunday, after it was widely reported that Exxon Mobil CEO Rex Tillerson would be Trump's pick for secretary of state, @realDonaldTrump turned coquettish, saying Tillerson was "a world class player and dealmaker" "whether or not I choose him for 'State.'" Is that a sign Tillerson isn't going to be the pick? Or is it just Trump following his Apprentice–honed instincts and trying to keep the country in suspense?

For the moment, the best way to think of @realDonaldTrump might be as the government-run media organization of one of your shakier nations. Its tweets aren't necessarily deliberate statements of misinformation, but neither are they necessarily true; sometimes they reflect the important issues of the day, while other times they're meant as a distraction from it. Making the distinctions requires context; it requires neither getting too alarmed at @realDonaldTrump's more alarmist positions nor ignoring the whole thing as nonsense. That's the thing about trolls: It's really hard to figure out what they actually think.

Follow Harry Cheadle on Twitter.

In the season premiere of our new series BIG NIGHT OUT, host Clive Martin explores how partying has become both an act of rebellion and survival for young people everywhere.

No matter how bleak the world gets, young people will continue to gather, get fucked up, and dance to loud music. In this new VICELAND series, we look at the ways people escape the mundanities, and the tragedies, of life through the act of "going out."

BIG NIGHT OUT airs Mondays at 10 PM on VICELAND.

Want to know if you get VICELAND? Head here to find out how to tune in.

So, you want to know about the whole Russia thing. The "Russia thing" is as good a name as any for the confusing, thorny series of stories about hacking operations that were allegedly initiated by Russian-backed operatives in an attempt to influence the presidential election in favor of Donald Trump. Whether it was the Russians, whether they were looking to get Trump elected, and what should or is likely to happen next are all controversial questions, and that's before you start going down the rabbit hole of competing Twitter threads and other conflicting sources that can muddy the waters. So here in one place is a mess of basic information about the Russia thing:

What happened, on a basic level?
Over the course of the presidential campaign, there were a number of incidents where hackers got access to the private files of Democrats, most notably the Democratic National Committee and Hillary Clinton's campaign chairman, John Podesta. These emails were then leaked to the public, either by WikiLeaks or another site, resulting in some damaging news stories getting out. Many people, including US intelligence agencies, believe that this was the work of operatives paid by the Russian government.

Why are people talking about this now?
The big piece of news to have come out recently was a Washington Post story published Friday that quoted anonymous officials as saying that the Russians had done this because Russia wanted Trump to win—not, as previously assumed, because Russia wanted to undermine the American electoral system in general. The New York Times, also citing anonymous officials, wrote that the Republican National Committee had been hacked, too, but that RNC documents weren't sent to WikiLeaks as the DNC's were. Also on Friday, Barack Obama ordered a review of Russian hacking in recent elections to be completed before he leaves office.

Do I have to trust the CIA's word on all this?
Even if you don't believe the unnamed officials in the Post story, there is a lot of evidence that Russia was behind the DNC hack—our friends at Motherboard can help you there.

But Donald Trump keeps saying that no one knows who was behind the hacks.
Yes, he does.

How much certainty is there that Russia was 1) behind these hacks and 2) wanted to help Trump?
Well, that's complicated, in part because whatever evidence the CIA has about this is classified. Trump and many of his supporters are skeptical of Russian involvement, period—John Bolton, who is a potential pick for deputy secretary of state, even said the DNC hack might be a "false flag operation." (However, Bolton has a tendency to be kinda nuts.) Some on the left, including the Intercept's Glenn Greenwald, are distrustful of stories relying on anonymous quotes from government officials, and they have good reason to be. The FBI apparently disagrees with the CIA on some things as well, though what those things are and the reasons for those disagreements are somewhat unclear thanks to everything being classified.

Meanwhile, not all Republicans are following Trump in denying Russian involvement. On Sunday, John McCain and Lindsey Graham, two longtime GOP senators, joined Democrats in calling for investigations into the cyberattacks. Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell, the Republican leaders of the House and Senate, later indicated that they wanted investigations, too.

On the other side of the aisle, Harry Reid, the outgoing Democratic Senate majority leader, has said that the FBI knew about Russia's involvement and pro-Trump motives and called for FBI director James Comey to resign, since he supposedly concealed this information while publicizing the FBI's continued probe of Hillary Clinton's emails.

So there's a whole spectrum of beliefs among prominent figures ranging from "the Russians might not have stolen any emails" to "the Russians stole emails because they wanted Clinton to lose, and the FBI hid what they knew because the bureau wanted Clinton to lose, too."

Could the CIA be wrong?
Sure. It's awfully hard to say what the chances are without knowing more, and it won't tell the public.

Did the hacking definitely lead to Clinton's loss?
There's basically no way to know. The stories written about the leaked emails may have made Clinton's team look bad, but there were other reasons people didn't vote for her, and other reasons people voted for Trump. Some, like Paul Krugman of the New York Times, think that the election is "illegitimate" as a result of the hacking and Comey's decision to write a letter to Congress highlighting the FBI's investigation into Clinton—but I dunno, man. Trump won.

Couldn't Obama, or the FBI, or anyone, have leaked this info about Russian hacking before the election?
Maybe. Maybe they didn't know then what they know now, whatever it is that they know now. (This is why debates about classified information are complicated.) Or maybe they hesitated because a charge like "Russia is helping Trump win the election" could itself have swung the election, and intelligence agencies didn't want to appear partisan. (Maybe also Obama figured, along with everyone else, that Clinton was going to win and didn't want to drop a bomb on the eve of the election. But this is straight supposition at this point, which is all we can really engage in.)

If Russia was helping Trump, does that make him a Russian "puppet," as Clinton once called him?
Trump has been dogged for a long time about his ties to Russia—Russian investors have reportedly put money in his business, and his former campaign manager Paul Manafort did work for Viktor Yanukovich, the pro-Russian former Ukrainian leader. But the idea that there's some nefarious connection between the Trump campaign and Russian president Vladimir Putin has never been proven. There are straightforward reasons for Russia to support Trump: He's talked about working with Putin, was less confrontational than Clinton when it came to Russia, and has said various positive things about Putin.

Doesn't the US interfere in elections all the time?
It definitely did a lot during the Cold War, as did the Soviet Union. In recent years, Russia has been working to help Putin-friendly politicians win in Europe, so the idea that they would do something similar in the US isn't a total shock.

What role does WikiLeak's Julian Assange have in all this?
WikiLeaks publishes all kinds of info it receives from all kinds of sources, so it's not surprising Assange's site ran the DNC and Podesta emails. No one is credibly accusing Assange of being a Russian agent or anything. Still, Assange obviously had an anti-Clinton bias during the campaign. The most likely scenario is that if Assange, Trump, and Putin all wanted to defeat Clinton, they wouldn't have needed to coordinate to work toward that end.

Has anyone, like, committed treason or anything?
No US citizen has been charged with any crimes. Even if Trump's campaign was helped by Russia, it doesn't appear at this point that the campaign communicated with Russia at all.

Could Clinton sue to have the election overturned if Russian involvement were proven?
This is America, so anyone can sue anyone for anything—but even if Russian hacking was proven beyond a shadow of a doubt, and even if it was shown to be an attempt to help Trump, it seems impossible to show that these activities were the thing that swung the election. And having the courts overturn an already-decided election would be a terrible precedent. The election is over.

But wait, what about the Electoral College? Could it respond to this news by not picking Trump, even though he won the most states?
That's technically possible if enough electors ignore the will of the voters who directed them to vote for Trump—but again, it seems like an awful, anti-democratic precedent, and is super, super unlikely. Some electors have called for an intelligence briefing before they make the results official on December 31 (which Podesta supports) but only one of those electors is a Republican. Trump won 303 electoral votes and only needed 270—it's doubtful that 34 electors are going to flip.

The election is over.

What if evidence emerged that the Trump camp was in contact with Moscow?
Harry Reid told the Huffington Post that "someone in the Trump campaign organization was in on the deal. I have no doubt," though he didn't speculate about whether Trump himself knew about what was going on. It's not clear what Reid is basing that on, and if there's any evidence to support him, it hasn't been made public. Obviously a presidential campaign colluding with a foreign government to sabotage its rival would be a huge scandal.

Is there any way this could lead to Trump not being the president?
No, sorry.

Follow Harry Cheadle on Twitter.

Photos courtesy of Thor Pederson

Last month, the super villains that run United Airlines invented something called "basic economy," a new way to make flying shitty that reimagines meager comforts like "space for your bag," or "the option to choose an aisle seat," as premium options you have to pay for. It feels like a day is coming when you'll have to wear goggles that show GEICO ads for your entire flight, and you'll have to buy an upgrade just to blink.

But if you need to travel across, say, an ocean, planes are the only game in town, right?

Well, you could always try a container ship—one of those hulking, quarter-mile-long vessels with hundreds of what are essentially train cars piled onto them. Container ship travel is sometimes an option for travelers who are, um, extremely flexible about a lot of things. For example, crossing an expanse like the Pacific Ocean takes about 12 hours by plane and about two weeks by container ship. But the time investment is just the beginning.

Thor Pederson is more than halfway through an effort to set foot in every country in the world without ever flying, and that means he has no choice but to arrange for himself to be shipped from continent to continent like a pallet of discount office supplies. Speaking from Kenya, he told me container ships are no place for landlubbers, and they can be a hassle just to board, but they're also full of hidden luxuries. Best of all for Pederson: The price tag on most of these voyages—which is normally comparable to flying, if not more expensive—is zero dollars.

VICE: Why are you traveling on container ships?
Thor Pedersen: Fewer than 200 people have reached every country in the world, and all of them have been flying at one point or another. I've been going for more than three years now. I've reached 121 countries, and so far, I haven't been back home, and I haven't flown. When I need to cross an ocean like the Atlantic, there's no way around it. You basically need to get onboard a container ship.

Aren't these long trips incredibly boring, though?
As long as this is going, I don't get a break. I'm investigating a visa, or a border crossing, or I'm meeting people, or the Red Cross, or the press. And I feel like I get a break when I'm on these ships. I'm able to work for maybe two to four days without internet, and then then I can't get any farther. So I get everything done that I can, and then I'm truly off.

What do you do then?
They use desalination to make fresh water, so you get free water, and the engine is immensely hot. And they run the water past the engine, so you get hot water for free. So when you're on the ships, you can have a shower that lasts two or three hours and not feel guilty about the environment. You can sleep in. You can read a book. I spend a lot of time on the bridge, because when you're on the bridge, you know everything. That's where the information comes from.

Are there any luxuries?
The last one I was onboard there was a sauna and an indoor swimming pool. Sometimes there's WiFi. On , I also saw the Northern Lights, and I saw whales and dolphins. It's quite extraordinary sometimes. But most of the time, you just see water.

Is it ever scary?
was supposed to be an eight-day voyage, but we ran into some really heavy weather, and I was pretty sure I was going to die. The ship was all over the place, and the waves were crashing on the containers, and the bough, and they had to slow down to 4 knots. You're thrown around if you don't hold onto anything. So I asked, "Is this normal?" And they laughed their asses off. And they looked at me and were like, "Son, this is absolutely nothing." Then I felt calm. "Ok, they say this is nothing. I just need to ride it out." So I spent four days like that.

Can you sleep in rough seas?
You're in your bunk, and you try to sleep, but it's almost impossible. You're rolling out of your bed. There was a chair on the floor, and it kept tipping over. Try pushing a chair and see how much it takes for it to tip over. You try and get something to eat, and you're holding onto the table with one hand, so you don't fall off your chair, and you're holding onto your plate with your other hand. And then you're sort of out of hands, so you're a bit challenged when you try to eat.

Pederson prepares a vaccine booster on a ship between Iceland and Canada.

How do you get onboard?
It's hard work to get on a container ship. There are a few container lines around the world that will offer you a cabin. You can go had to pay $15 per day for my cabin and food, and a one-time fee of $60 for insurance. And they wanted me to write a story about how wonderful it is to travel onboard a container ship.

Have you paid for any others?
Everything else has been free.

Toward the end of your trip, you'll have to visit tons of individual small island countries in the Pacific. Are you going to try something other than container ships for that?
Yeah, I'm definitely not going to try and go for sailboats and shit like that. All the I have to be in each country for 24 hours. So if they do all that within eight or 14 hours, then they'll leave. And I might have to wait a month for the next ship because of that. So we'll see.

This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

You can follow Pederson's journey at his website.

Follow Mike Pearl on Twitter.

At his first day on the job as sheriff of the Cook County Jail in Chicago, Tom Dart noticed something was deeply wrong.

"I'm shutting down a division, and the next moment, I'm seeing mentally ill people with no beds," he told VICE. "And I'm like, 'OK, what's going on here? Did I miss out on a memo that I'm also in charge of the local mental health hospital, too? I thought I was just in charge of the jail.'"

With roughly 8,000 inmates, Cook County is America's largest local jail, and about 35 percent of that population has some sort of mental illness—making it perhaps the country's largest mental health institution. The fact that the two are now virtually symbiotic speaks to the fact that a mentally ill person is now ten times more likely to be behind bars than in a hospital bed.

So, over the last decade, Sheriff Dart has tried to accomplish three things: "Keep them from coming here, keep them from coming back, and treat them like humans." To do that, his administration has put forth a litany of measures like hiring mental health specialists; providing case studies for public defenders; signing up thousands for the Affordable Care Act; creating photography, farming, and transition programs; and establishing a 24/7 hotline for mentally ill former inmates to call, should they need a ride to pick up meds, or find a bed.

"We want to literally change the mindset as if they're walking into my hospital," Dart, a former prosecutor, state senator, and representative in Illinois, told me. "What am I gonna do? Diagnose, and then put a course of treatment together."

Some say the problems of mental illness in modern mass incarceration can be traced back to the Reagan era, when the duty of not only treating but also funding fell increasingly on the states, which often shuttered community mental health hospitals in the face of rising costs. In the future, Dart believes this pattern of underfunding mental health institutions will continue. And with criminal justice reform moving slowly—if at all—in DC, it's left to local jails like his own, which hold nearly a third of the nation's inmates, to plot a path forward for mentally troubled members of society.

By reexamining every step of the process—from bail and court hearings, to mental health and the charges themselves—the idea of diversion, or preventing people from ending up behind bars, is being redefined.

Cities and states across the country are experimenting with how to clean up the historically clogged criminal justice system, which sees 1 in 111 Americans, or 2.2 million in total, behind bars on any given day, and leaves 1 in 3 adults with some sort of criminal record. (That's the same share as those who have college degrees.) By reexamining every step of the process—from bail and court hearings, to mental health and the charges themselves—the concept of diversion, or preventing people from ending up behind bars, is being redefined.

California is one of the best examples. In 2009, a panel of three federal judges ruled that the state's prisons were dangerously past capacity, a violation of detainees' Eighth Amendment rights against cruel and unusual punishment—an order that was upheld by the United States Supreme Court in 2011. What followed would later be called "realignment," or the statewide movement to rethink public safety and sentencing. In an effort to reduce state prison populations, anyone who committed a nonviolent, non-serious, or non-sex-offender-related crime would be sentenced to local jails instead. And since California's constitution limits what state prisons can do to downsize, counties were given an influx of funds to come up with ways to lower their head counts.

According to Brandon Martin, a research associate at the Public Policy Institute of California who studies corrections, two new techniques arose from this: split sentencing and flash incarceration.

"The judge can sort of decide how much jail time someone gets, and then how much time they're out, with community supervision," he explained. "So if you do a split sentence, you're only getting six months in jail, and a longer term in the community , which would be better, and decreasing overall jail population."

The other method—which applies to those who have violated probation after being released from jail—lives up to its name. "You're able to flash them up to ten days," Martin said. "Putting them in a jail as a way to, sort of, get them back into line with their probation program." Instead of having to reenter the long slog of criminal justice, the idea here is to offer minimal contact with the system, and also reinforce punishment to offenders. (Hawaii has a similar program called Project HOPE.)

Watch Sheriff Tom Dart talk about running one of America's largest mental health facilities, which happens to be a jail in Chicago.

In addition, Martin said, county jails rely on the early release of nonviolent inmates with GPS monitoring, and together these measures have led to a steady decline in the jails' population since realignment. Not to mention the passage of Prop 47 in 2014, Martin noted, which made six felonies, including drug possession, misdemeanors statewide—another diversion strategy seen in other municipalities, particularly those that have followed suit when it comes to weed possession.

Key to making it all work are three bold-line factors: public safety, cost-effectiveness, and justice.

In a paper entitled "Alternatives to Incarceration in California," Martin and his colleague, Ryken Grattet, found studies that showed the recidivism rate for someone placed under community supervision is, in fact, the same for someone who gets incarcerated. Compare the price tags, he suggests, and come to a conclusion.

"That doesn't say that non-custodial are doing the best job," he argued. "But it means that if you're looking at $50,000 a year for someone versus $8,000 for someone a year—in terms of cost-benefit—then we can continue to look at the non-custodial settings."

The thing is, Martin continued, municipalities might not have much of a choice in the coming years. "Even if you're building a new jail, building a new one is so expensive because you have to provide programming, medical, and mental health space," he said. "Jails in the future are going to be much smaller compared to previous ones. So you're already going to have to decrease your population."

In New York City, this is part of the logic behind closing Rikers Island—that by continuing efforts to downsize, new, smaller community jails will be able to accommodate the city's remaining inmates, should the jail be shut down. Regardless of whether that happens—we explored the challenges in Part 1 of this series—the city has undertaken measures to help prevent people from ending up there for days, months, or, in tragic cases like that of Kalief Browder, years on end.

In the last year, VICE has reported on a variety of these initiatives, like those attacking the problem of money bail: New York has created a citywide fund and a supervised release program to both pay for and monitor those who cannot handle that burden. Then there are outstanding warrants, the nearly million of which the Brooklyn DA's office has begun to clear. And in late May, the city council passed a bill in conjunction with the New York City Police Department that will transfer a host of petty infractions from criminal to civil court.

"Our research, and a lot of national research out there, shows that short-term jail sentencing, or detention, is somewhat criminogenic."—Adam Mansky

But for Adam Mansky, the director of operations at the Center for Court Innovation, diversion should dig deeper. "The question is, can we look even earlier?" he asked me. "Can we actually route people onto a productive path before they actually get to the court?"

That was how Project Reset started. Launched in 2015, the initiative, which is a collaboration between the center, the NYPD, and the Manhattan and Brooklyn DA offices, as well as other groups, offers intervention instead of a court date to 16- and 17-year-olds who have been arrested for low-level crimes like drug possession or shoplifting. It's currently being implemented in seven precincts citywide, including some of the city's toughest neighborhoods. (In addition, initiatives like the Warning Card Project—where NYPD officers in high schools offer an initial warning, instead of a court summonses—are also aimed at stopping the school-to-prison pipeline.)

"Our research, and a lot of national research out there, shows that short-term jail sentencing, or detention, is somewhat criminogenic," Mansky told me. "You take the same two people, and you put one in jail for more than 24 hours, that person is more likely to re-offend than someone who's not going in.

"So we're looking at a population of children, adolescents, who everyone agrees: the lighter the touch, the better," he added. "The less we do, the less likely we are to screw them up, and keep them on a productive path."

In a Project Reset precinct, a police officer can offer the alternative to the teenager when they're first arrested. If they comply, a prosecutor evaluates their record with the public defender to see if they have a criminal history. If not, he or she then attends two sessions. "It might be individual counseling, or some kind of facilitated group discussion, like a workshop," Mansky explained. "It might be some kind of community service that's focused on young people."

After those sessions are completed, the prosecutor can then decline to continue with the case, rendering the court date irrelevant. And if the teen fails the sessions, or just doesn't show up, Project Reset follows a similar model to supervised release with bail, where the offender just has to go to the court date like any other suspect.

"I think that people in my world have done a tremendous disservice by allowing and encouraging what we do to be called 'alternatives to incarceration.'"—Adam Mansky

In its first six months, the initiative had a 98 percent rate of compliance from participants, and, according to Mansky, parents and communities have been incredibly receptive. So much so that, in June, the Manhattan District Attorney's office funded a borough-wide expansion of the program. After all, recidivism rates were 8 percent for those involved in the program, as opposed to 25 percent for those who were not. And nationwide, we see this same kind of idea mirrored in community, veteran, and drug courts—all with results that don't always include incarceration. (Critics argue drug courts are essentially an extension of the criminal justice system and can be overly punitive to low-level offenders.)

"I think that people in my world have done a tremendous disservice by allowing and encouraging what we do to be called 'alternatives to incarceration,'" Mansky argued. "We're acknowledging that the default response should be jail, or is jail, and we're calling it alternatives, in the way people used to talk about 'alternative medicine' or 'alternative lifestyles.'

"I think that what's most interesting about this point in time," he continued, "is that people are starting to realize incarceration shouldn't be the default. Incarceration should be the alternative."

Follow John Surico on Twitter.

This article is part of the VICE series The Future of Incarceration. Read the rest of the package here.

(All photos via Zoopla)

What is it? It is a flat, mate;
Where is it? Judd Street, near King's Cross – I mean, as slap bang in the middle of London as you can get, truly;
What is there to do locally? Literally anything. You can walk to Oxford Street in, like, seven seconds. There's a big hospital up the road. You can get a train to fucking France. Hit up the British Library. Go to the British Museum. Go to the new Granary Square complex, that kind of new-build-with-old-bricks place where pop-ups happen. Like: imagine a thing. You can do it in this area of London. No, I'm— no, I'm not going to say it. I'm not going to say it. I'm not saying it. Fine: it being King's Cross, you can go and have dark guilty intercourse with a sex worker. Fine. I said it.
Alright, how much are they asking? £1,387 a month, a figure so precise I am convinced estate agents are making up market rent these days by turning a calculator on and slapping it on their desk and just quoting whatever number got mashed into the pad.

To Judd Street this week, in central-est central London, a place everyone on earth would be happy to live. Because that's the great con about London: yes, there is everything here, and more – earthly delights and great horrors, all slashed through with a river like a garbage pile. But also it's spread and sprawled out, stretched thin like dough, and essentially it takes an hour to get to anywhere from anywhere and a lot of the time you spend living what you think is the high life is actually spent wasting the last of your iPhone battery listening to a single song, alone, on the top deck of a bus. London is a city, yes, but it's also a collection of very distinct places roughly glued together with a thousand different public transport systems, and the only running theme throughout it are all the Prets. Living in London is actually about living in a place that is technically part of London, and is very very close to London, but London proper – i.e., where M&M's World is – is still a very long way away from you. Living in London is actually "Living in Brockley", which is different. And so anyway yes: that's London.

Not Judd Street, though, off the back of King's Cross, which is the perfect location for your London life, only if it didn't look like this – this being, of course, the answer to the question: "What if the people who designed those bleak little single-serving microwave dinners that men whose wives have left them eat in front of late-night television before blowing their heads off, alone, shotgun not a pistol, their body undiscovered for days afterward because nobody ever really cared about them in the first place – and: what if the people who designed those also designed flats?"

And lo:

I honestly spend my life putting photos in frames because estate agents – despite it being one of the key tenets of their job – cannot take a single decently sized photo of fucking anything

And a description:

Fantastic 1 double bedroom luxury flat in Russell Square. The flat has recently been refurbished to the highest standard finished with marble in the shower room, solid oak wooden flooring throughout, modern new kitchen in the kitchen/diner and underfloor heating. This Edwardian mansion block flat will go quick. Get in touch today to book your viewing.
Short lets are considered as well.

The great humour here comes from whoever has been tasked to describe this flat on Zoopla, because they've rolled the estate agent Describe-U-Like™ wheel of fortune and come up with "this flat has recently been refurbished to the highest standard", which is quite a rich description for what appears very much to be the cheapest coffee table Argos possibly sells; an old-looking IKEA desk which I'm pretty sure is one of those ones you always get, don't you, in houses furnished by landlords, desks that are entirely structurally dependent on one single piece of rough-textured MDF, which, for whatever reason, is always designed to rub up against your leg, however which way you sit at it, and in this instance has been lovingly refurbished with a £1 plastic tablecloth; and also for a microwave that looks like it's been yellow since that time someone exploded a Pot Noodle in it in actual 1998.

Ah, yes: nothing quite says "refurbished to the highest standard" like a fucking plug socket slap bang in the middle of a fucking wall. Nothing says "exxxxxxxtremely primo luxxxxxe shit" like having to walk sideways like a crab to get around your bed, because your bedroom is the exact size – to the centimetre – of what can be defined as a "room" rather than "an ambitious cupboard". Mm. I like especially how they put a corner shower in the middle of the bathroom, the mad, mad, mad, mad cunts.

Listen, I look at a lot more London rental opportunities than you do, and I can see this as indicative of where this is going: this city – this doomed, doomed city, ever more carved out in flats that specify how one sad, wrecked human could live a life in them if they hand over all of the money they earn in a month and be really careful about how much they have the lights on in case their electricity bill summons the bailiffs. Essentially: this wretched, horrid, white deathly London flat is what all of London will look like soon, when landlords take all the large buildings and divide them into gruel-like portions, Just Enough To Live In If You Had To, and that's how we will live, in our distant little London satellites, commuting for hours just to go and take our picture with an M&M, then back again, with all those people, the tubes creaking and sighing with the weight of it, back in the darkness, the pitch pitch darkness, back to our tiny suburbs and quiet streets, up through stairs and staid corridors to our flats, which have one microwave in them and the cheapest possible desk on the planet, and we will flop on the bed and go: I am living the life, here, the best my life could possibly ever be, in London.

Might have to stop doing this column for a bit lads, tbqhwy, as it's really starting to bum me out.

@joelgolby

More from this series, if you can bear it:

Shall We Just Sack Off London and Live in a £15k Flat in Glasgow?

A Fucking Shed in Cheam! CHEAM!

What Happened in the Dread House?

Stephon Rucker in Fort Greene. All photos by Jason Bergman

Stephon Rucker is finally back home.

Born in 1985, he grew up in Fort Greene, Brooklyn, in the Walt Whitman Housing Projects. By the time he was a teen, Rucker says, he was running with Bloods and his neighborhood houses were feuding with the nearby Farragut projects. At age 20, Rucker says he was a cocaine wholesaler, moving product from Brooklyn to Schenectady. After what he describes as a violent dispute with another seller—prosecutors accused him of "terrorizing" a man and a woman with a female accomplice—he was convicted of a slew of charges, including third-degree assault, second-degree robbery, and first-degree burglary. He recalls several nights in the NYPD's 79th Precinct, in Brooklyn Central Booking, and on Rikers Island—and then several years in Coxsackie, Clinton, and Bare Hill Correctional Facilities upstate.

While imprisoned, Rucker read the law and handled parts of his own successful appeal, reducing his sentence from 12 to eight years. He came home, at age 30, in 2015.

Now that Rucker is back in my neighborhood, he's almost as well-known as he is whip smart. As he sips from a paper cup one night on Myrtle Avenue, dapping all the passersby in front of a late night Chinese food spot by Adelphi Street, Rucker sounds like a public defender when he cites the 180.80 Criminal Procedure Statute governing the amount of time the state can hold you without a hearing.

Upstate, those pilgrims told me straight up, "Naw, nigger, up here, we'll kill you."

We spoke over Hennessy one night this fall, and over coffee a couple mornings later. I asked Rucker about his new life on the outside, what he remembers from the inside, and what he thinks about reforming and maybe even closing down a massive jail like Rikers Island. Here's what he had to say, in his own words.

Christmas spirit hanging from the shop window of a hairdresser

This article originally appeared on VICE Denmark

Most people tend to think that the Christmas spirit is easy to recreate; Hang up some white fluff, silver fringes or anything with the right shade of green and/or red, and you're basically set – right?

Wrong. Last December, Danish photographer Sarah Buhtmann noticed that many Christmas decorations in Copenhagen were well-meaning, but ended up looking rather sad. She walked around the city capturing the winners of half-assed holiday decorations. Here's what she came back with.

More on VICE:

Does Christmas Really Come Earlier Every Year?

I Watched 21 Hours of Christmas Films While the West Collapsed

Let's Ruin Christmas by Turning It into an Economics Lesson

The future's so bright she's gotta wear shades. Marine Le Pen tries on sunglasses at a French Trade market. (Photo: Michel Euler AP/PA)

For those who hoped 2016 was a freak occurrence, there is bad news. A series of coming events look set to dramatically intensify the populist revolt: across a large swathe of Europe an assortment of radical candidates are now actively preparing for a fresh wave of elections, each of which has the potential to pile further pressure onto both an already creaking European Union and the progressive liberals struggling to contain the spread of nationalist and exclusionary politics. Basically, if you thought 2016 was all about populism, you haven't seen anything yet.

In the first part of the year, much of our attention will focus on the presidential elections in France and the fortunes of Marine Le Pen, leader of the populist right-wing Front National. Though historically the FN has never come close to winning the contest, the party, founded in 1972, has sought to use the presidential election as a springboard into attracting headlines and new recruits. In 2002, Marine's father, Jean-Marie Le Pen, shocked the world when he reached the second and final round of the contest after receiving almost 17 percent of the vote amid a fragmented field of candidates. Though Le Pen senior was subsequently crushed in the final round by centre-right candidate Jacques Chirac (by a margin of 82-18) that earlier contest was seen as an important watershed in the life of the Front National. It was also a moment that galvanised concern that Europe's radical right was beginning to move from the margins to the mainstream, long before anybody was talking about Donald Trump.

This time around there are new dynamics. Unlike her father, who was seen by many as an extremist, since becoming leader of the FN in 2011 Marine Le Pen has worked hard to "detoxify" the movement, downplaying the strident anti-Semitism and crude biological racism that characterised her father's era. Instead, Marine Le Pen has put more emphasis on the so-called "defence of French values", the perceived threat of Islam and economic protectionism, arguing the French should abandon the Euro single currency and fight back against the unregulated globalisation that is undermining ordinary workers.

Against the backdrop of the terrorist atrocities in Paris and Nice, the political climate in France has also changed. Concerns about security are on the rise and French intellectuals are beginning to talk of a "cultural insecurity" that is spreading among voters and pushing them away from the established parties. There is also evidence that Le Pen is making inroads among groups that shunned her father, such as women and young people. Since her arrival the FN has won mayoral elections across a string of mainly southern towns, made strong gains in local and regional elections and, in 2014, won outright the European Parliament elections with support from one in four voters.

Le Pen with young female voters earlier this year. (Photo: Michel Euler AP/Press Association Images)

The widely unpopular socialist incumbent President Francois Hollande has ruled himself out from running again, and it looks unlikely that another left-wing candidate will able to make it into the second round. Meanwhile, on the centre-right the nomination has gone to Francois Fillon, a former Prime Minister who is widely seen as a Thatcherite and Catholic conservative. Polls suggest that Le Pen will reach the final round, which presents voters on the left with a serious dilemma: do they support the hard-right Thatcherite who advocates policies which they loathe, do they support Le Pen, or do they stay at home? The election will be decided by exactly how many left-wing voters – some of whom may identify with Le Pen's economic protectionism – will "hold their nose" and vote for Fillon. The FN is hoping that reduced turnout among left-wing liberals holds the key to yet another political earthquake.

The French presidential election is by no means the only contest to watch. France will also have fresh elections to their legislative assembly in 2016, meaning that even if Le Pen fails to make a serious dent on the presidential race the FN will have a second opportunity to exert its influence in June. Those races will follow a national election in the Netherlands in which anti-EU and anti-Islam populist Geert Wilders is polling strongly and having a visible impact. Recently, the Dutch parliament voted for a partial ban on the burka, seen widely as an attempt to undercut support for Wilders (he responded in a tweet by calling for a complete ban). Now, he is hoping to capitalise further on ongoing public concerns over immigration, the refugee crisis and a lack of economic growth.

Like other populists, Wilders – who was recently found guilty of "public insult and incitement to discrimination" after making strident remarks about reducing the number of Moroccans in the Netherlands – has been profiting from a new climate in which identity concerns among voters have become far stronger. According to a recent large-scale survey by Ipsos-MORI, almost half of voters across 22 countries agreed with the statement that "immigration is causing my country to change in ways that I do not like".

Since the 2010 election, which saw Wilders attract almost 16 percent of the vote and 24 seats, he has continued to attract widespread attention, calling for the Netherlands to withdraw from the EU, reduce the number of Muslim migrants and warning about the "Islamification" of Western societies. Like Le Pen he is now hoping that his support for Trump could encourage a similar backlash among Dutch voters.

A demonstration initiated by the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party. (Photo: Jens Meyer)

A few months later our eyes will turn to national elections in Germany, which in recent years has been grappling not only with the street-based anti-Islam "Pegida" movement, but the rise of Alternative for Germany (AfD), a populist right party that was founded in 2013 by an assortment of economists and business leaders who opposed the Euro single currency and the handling of the Eurozone crisis. Since then, a more overtly nationalist faction has become more influential within the party. Led by Frauke Petry, the AfD's political priorities are now opposing Islam (using the slogan "Islam is not a part of Germany") and attacking Angela Merkel's handling of the refugee crisis, while also developing strong ties with Russia and other populist right parties in Europe.

Merkel, who recently called for a burka ban "wherever legally possible", is clearly feeling the pressure. Like the traditional far-right in Germany, the AfD is polling especially strongly in Eastern states like Saxony, and during 2014-2015 secured representation in five state parliaments (including one in the West of the country). Though Merkel is widely expected to retain power in the polls, the AfD is ending 2016 in third place, typically enjoying around 12 percent of the vote, and will be hoping for rising public anxiety over the refugee crisis and terrorism to bolster this support further. According to a recent study by the Friedrich Ebert Foundation, around one in three Germans feel that there are too many "foreigners" in Germany. The same proportion agree with the statement "I sometimes feel like a stranger in my own country".

(Photo: Jens Meyer)

This insurgency of far-right parties is a trend being repeated across Europe. Norway last had parliamentary elections in 2013. That time around, a coalition of right-wing parties – including the populist Progress Party – took power. This time, the Progress Party's performance could be a useful way of gauging the strength of the populist right in Scandinavia, where Norway continues to debate the legacy of terrorist Anders Breivik and Sweden chews over the reversal of its liberal approach toward the welcoming of refugees.

Parliamentary elections are due to take place in the next year or so in Austria, where attention will shift to the performance of the Freedom Party. The radical right party, which has strong links to Le Pen and is strongly opposed to refugees, immigration and Islam, could realistically win the election outright. The party is currently sitting comfortably in first place in the polls and in December of 2016 took 46 percent of the vote in a widely covered presidential race. Unlike other radical right parties in Europe, the Austrian Freedom Party has been a serious force since the mid-1980s and has strong support among younger voters (a few years ago, one survey suggested the party enjoyed support from up to 42 percent of young Austrians).

In 2018 elections are also scheduled to take place in Sweden, Italy and Hungary, where an assortment of populist right movements are likely to retain or increase their support, ranging from the Sweden Democrats to the Northern League and Five Star in Italy, and to the anti-Roma and anti-refugee Jobbik movement in Hungary. Elections in East European states such as Hungary will almost certainly witness strong support for radical conservatives who, since 2015, have come to define themselves in opposition to Germany's more liberal stance on the refugee crisis. Strong support for these groups will further erode European solidarity.

The rise of these parties could have further implications for the future of the EU. In the spring of 2019, voters across Europe will go to the polls in the next round of elections to the European Parliament. Against the backdrop of a lingering financial crisis, rising inequality between northern and southern EU member states and growing animosity between east and west over the handling of the refugee crisis, to many voters these elections will be another opportunity to kick the establishment and send an even larger number of Eurosceptics, nationalists and populists into the heart of the EU. By that point Western democracies will also only be one year away from the next presidential election in the United States and possible re-election of Trump. So, if the year 2016 pushed populism to the forefront of our debate, then the next few years could well embed this disruptive force into the fabric of our political life.

How you interpret these events will depend heavily on your outlook on the future. Optimists will point to the ongoing failure of the populist right to rally a coalition of voters that can carry them over the 50 percent line, and their toxicity among women, financially secure voters and ethnic minorities. Seen through this angle, Western states are becoming too diverse for this brand of politics to ever triumph. Pessimists – and after this year, there should be a lot of them around – point to the way in which support for the populist right is generally moving in an upward trajectory, and how even in the United States, which has experienced rapid diversity in recent years, a candidate like Trump can cross the line. Next year we will discover which of these interpretations is correct.

Matthew Goodwin is a professor of Politics and International Relations at the University of Kent. Follow him on Twitter.

More on VICE:

How Marine Le Pen Dominated Her Andrew Marr Interview

We Watched Nationalists Wave Flags and Flames at Poland's Independence Day March

The Golden Dawn Have a British Fan Club

The cell where James Burns intends to spend the next month. All photos by Daniel Brothers

The afternoon before James Burns was first placed in isolation, his mother took him to see Jurassic Park. He was only six but remembers it like a dream gone horribly wrong: Mom was addicted to drugs at the time, and spending a day with her one-on-one was a special treat. But within hours of catching the movie, his mother voluntarily left Burns—whom child services in Denver had decided was in serious trouble after he acted out in school—at a mental health facility.

Burns still remembers the latex gloves worn by staffers who pulled down his pants and injected him with thorazine to knock him out cold that day. He was left in a "quiet room," which is not the same thing as solitary in prison, but is nonetheless a traumatic experience for a child.

That day marked the beginning of a more than 15-year relationship between a tough kid and America's criminal justice system. At his lowest point, Burns says, he robbed local drug dealers and committed violent crimes, even though he was hardly the most sadistic or volatile member of the crew he ran with. And as much as anything else, Burns's time inside was colored by repeated stays in isolation, at various times as a child and again in state prison.

All of which might make it seem strange that, beginning Monday, Burns plans to voluntarily spend 30 days in solitary confinement in the La Paz County Jail in Parker, Arizona, livestreaming his every moment behind bars on VICE.com. But he's hoping this experience will help shine a light on the darkest corner of America's criminal justice system.

"I don't want to put poison in anyone's ear—I want to start a conversation," Burns says. "Is this something as a society that we should continue to do? Everything suggests that it doesn't make facilities safer, doesn't make our community safer, and that people are developing mental and physical ailments because of this practice. So knowing all of these things, why are we still doing this? I want people to really think about that."

Watch James Burns explain why he's going into solitary confinement voluntarily for 30 days.

At its core, solitary generally consists of spending "23 hours a day alone in a small cell with a solid steel door, a bunk, a toilet, and a sink," as the ACLU put it in a 2014 report on the practice. It is marked by a total or near-total lack of human interaction and natural light, and often includes a ban on reading materials. Unlike most of the rest of the planet, America embraces this practice at almost every level of the system—local jails, state and federal prisons, mental health facilities, you name it. By most estimates, solitary ensnares 65,000 to 100,000 people at any given time in the United States. Just this past month, a study from Yale Law School carried out in coordination with the heads of state prisons across America suggested nearly 6,000 of them have been in solitary for three years or longer. And like most layers of the American criminal justice system, solitary disproportionately impacts people of color.

It'd be one thing if this practice of confining people in cramped, isolated cells worked—if all the loneliness and human misery had a point. But report after report (and study after study) suggests solitary brutalizes the incarcerated and in some cases may even make them more likely to hurt others when they get out.

"It scarred me deeply," Burns explains. "There's a part of me that is afraid of touching a door that I've closed a long time ago, that took years for me to figure out and understand."

This time around, Burns's stint in solitary will be special, to be sure—he will be able to ask for and receive release at any given time, VICE staffers will be monitoring him via video 24/7, and various emergency provisions are in place should he have medical problems. But he hopes that by showing people the day-to-day (and hour-to-hour) reality of solitary confinement, the sometimes muted conversation about the forlorn and forgotten will be advanced in a real way. It's an especially important quest now that Donald Trump, whose enthusiasm for law and order was a central campaign message, is measuring drapes at the White House.

Burns is hopeful that everyone from civil liberties advocates to criminal justice reformers to proponents of solitary take notice.

"We at the La Paz County Sheriff's Office take great pride in our adult detention facility and the work our officers do," Lieutenant Curt Bagby said in a statement. "Having cameras in our facility showing any part of the process is an easy thing for us to agree to because we take great care to follow the rules set forth for us by the Arizona guidelines on dealing with our incarcerated population. We are happy to show the general public the way we operate as we have nothing to hide. We understand VICE wanted to highlight the practice of solitary confinement, and we are willing to show how it is done here.

"We realize the feedback won't always be positive towards law enforcement and that other law enforcement agencies would consider this to be counterproductive," Bagby added, "but if assisting VICE means helping start a conversation, then we would like to be involved.

Here, in his own words, James Burns describes his time in the system, how he's (mostly) succeeded in getting past it, and what this project is all about.

I think it's important to note that I don't want to paint myself as a victim here. I take responsibility for my actions, because we all have a choice. And as flawed as the system may be, I did make some very poor decisions that landed me in my situation. The two biggest things I regret are, first, the crimes that I committed, the armed robberies. And that's because of the people who were victims. And secondly—most important—what I regret is paving the way for younger people like my siblings and other kids in the neighborhood who may have looked up to us and thought it was OK to follow in my footsteps.

When it comes to solitary, there's this idea that people are thinking of like a dark dungeon, where nobody sees the light of day for all this time. And actually it's kind of the opposite. When I think about it, it is a very bright hell. A very sterile, bright hell. And more than anything, solitary is a mind fuck. The way that things move in there is very efficient and mechanical, and if you really want to break it down, your darkest fears of mind control and sensory deprivation and all of those things come into play. Even the sounds—it's like you're in your own coffin, basically, just unraveling.

People make mistakes, but that doesn't mean we should outcast them for the rest of their lives.

Solitary is perpetual monotony. Think about a miserable day where you are just bored out of your mind, and multiply that by 100. In there, your thoughts go and go and they don't stop firing and they don't calm down. In fact, they become heightened. And then you try to go to sleep. I think people can relate to this: They try to go to bed at night, and they are driving themselves crazy because they can't fucking go to sleep. Well, that starts to happen, you can't sleep and the noises become louder and the shouting and the madness happening outside of your door sounds gargled, and it's strange.

Solitary confinement also affects parts of the brain—physically shrinks parts of the brain. The science is out that it causes problems, people are riddled with mental illness and even physical ailments after coming out of solitary confinement. I just don't think that solitary has a place in modern society—we should be getting passed that, we should be talking about mental health, we should be talking about reform and how to make people better, not worse.

Almost all of the people who are in prison today will be released at some point, and those formerly incarcerated people are going to be our neighbors. We are releasing some people from maximum-security prisons where they have been sitting in solitary confinement for 15 years, and they are absolutely fucking bonkers when you let them out. That creates unnecessary danger for many communities.

Not everybody who commits a crime or has been in bad circumstances are mutants or animals or monsters or the boogieman—they are human beings just like us. They can change. People make mistakes, but that doesn't mean we should outcast them for the rest of their lives. And there are very few people who make it out of solitary and live a normal life. I'm not saying that I'm special in any sort of way. I got into this industry thanks to a combination of luck and hard work, but in the end, the criminal justice system as it's structured today doesn't work for the majority of imprisoned people—it doesn't set them up for success.

I was a kid the first time I went in, so I didn't understand the true gravity of what was happening to me. I'm afraid that this time around there will be situations that are going to trigger me, but my hope is that I can look this thing in the face again and finally close the door on it forever.

Watch the solitary confinement livestream above or check out the standalone site here.