HBO's classic epic of everday prison life, Oz, featured numerous stabbings and other sundry violent misbehavior. Whenever I think of shanks, however, I think of the warden's office at the old county jail in Lovington, New Mexico. After completing an interview with for a local newspaper on some forgotten matter, she showed me a glass cabinet full of fascinating improvised weaponry, confiscated over the years from prisoners. Everyone knows about broken toothbrushes and ball-point pens: what about duct tape rolled into a short, highly-compressed cylinder and sharpened? Or wood from an old hardcover book's spine lovingly serrated into a throatcutting shiv?
The aptly-named Prison Pen aims to remove at least one source of shank-matter from circulation: with no hard parts, the gooey, rubberized item simply flops in on itself when put under any pressure greater than that required for writing. The only thing that could make it a superior product would be to put the squeaker from a squeaky toy in it, to render attempted murder both ineffective and hilarious.
At $10 or so from an English police and military supply shop per pen, however, I doubt many cash-strapped city jails will be buying many.
Product Page [Spycatcher via Coolest Gadgets and Ubergizmo]
