Around 1370 John Huss was born in Bohemia. The exact date of his birth is not known, but for reasons that will become clear when he died is well attested to.

Huss had a strong faith in Christ and spoke out against religious and political corruption. He wrote books to stand against heresies and preached against hypocrisy. For this he was sentenced to die and excommunicated. The religious leaders were determined to keep control of the people around them, and they had little time for Huss’ call to holiness. It wasn’t about holiness to them, but about power.

Huss was put on trial for challenging those in charge. He was convicted of heresy for questioning what they taught. He would receive the death penalty for his stand against corruption.

When his death sentence was announced a riot erupted in Constance where his ‘trial’ was held. Fearing he would escape during the riot guards were sent to his cell. What they found was Huss in prayer and writing a letter to his loved ones. When he completed the letter he asked it be passed along.

The court scribe, Poggius Bracciolini took copious court notes and recorded every detail leading up to Huss’ execution. Bracciolini asked Huss to forgive him and to hold no ill will against him.

Huss would write in his final letter about the suffering he endured, about the temptation to recant his faith, about the dingy prison he found himself in, and about his hope in eternity. He would describe the filthy cell he was placed in, the horrible odors, his illnesses from his horrid punishment, and how his teeth fell out from malnutrition.

He would continue, “My writings were burnt, although not a word of them had been understood… I hope that my work will be sealed with the roasting of my flesh. Don’t avenge my death, remain peaceful. I would cry for you, but a servant of God, whose honor shall be mine, must desert, for Him, and for the sake of Christ, his wife, child, brother, sister, home, possessions, and all that is dear to him.”

He would conclude his letter stating, “Written at Constance, during my last night, on the 5th day of July 1415, on which day I was just 42 years old… John Huss.”

As he was led to his execution he sang and prayed. He was tied to a stake and then the pillar was set on fire. Bracciolini would later recount two things of note, first that Huss died quickly “before a flame touched him,” and most profoundly the scribe would concur, “Verily, I say unto you, he was just too good for this world.”

What an epitaph! In a world where many seek their own way, here was a man who died for what he believed in, and just as importantly lived for what he believed in. May we seek such a faith and a standard of living and impact in our own spiritual journey.

No one hopes to be in a situation where they have to drop everything and leave in an emergency but given the increasing concerns in today’s modern world many intelligent people are choosing to prepare themselves in the event of the unforeseen.

The majority of these people (myself included) are not fear-mongering paranoids but everyday citizens who have taken a rational look at the world around them and undertaken simple, basic steps to protect themselves by building a Bug Out Bag for themselves and their families.

Sometimes individuals do it for fear of a big, dramatic event initiating an end of civilization cataclysm but there are a great many more common events that happen all the time that would make a well prepared person gratified to have prepared a Bug Out Bag:

• Terrorism
• Flood
• Earthquake
• Hurricane
• Tornado
• Mass Shooting
• Home fire
• Tsunami
• Home Invasion
• Riots
• … or just seeking peace of mind

What makes a good Bug Out Bag?

This can be answered many ways. There are a wide selection of off the shelf Bug Out Bags that are sold online and if you are not interested in individually picking out your Bug Out Bag essentials, they can be a good option. However because they are mass produced and sold to the general public they often do not account for variables that may make the difference for your locality. For example, you would not have the same Bug Out Bag essentials if you lived in a desert region versus living on the coast. The same goes for if you are packing a Bug Out Bag for yourself or a family.

Regardless of these variables there are a few simple rules that should be observed when deciding your Bug Out Bag contents:

1. Make sure you can carry your Bug Out Bag comfortably – you may have to walk for a long distance to safety. If your bag is ill fitted or too heavy you might as well have taken your chances sheltering in place.
2. Keep it SIMPLE – you are not trying to build a mobile home that you will carry around. Many sites list dozens and dozens of items to buy and bring, adding cost and weight. Remember that electronics need power and are prone to breaking. Pack simple, reliable things to cover basic needs.
3. Pack things that make you self sufficient – If you are thinking about an item that you will need to pair with something that you are going to need to source on the way, forget it. If you are moving to safety the last thing you want to do is worry about scavenging. Pack complementary items that can be used both individually and together to save space.
4. Plan your bag with a defined time period in mind. 72 hours is a good place to begin as this is approximately how long a person can live without water. Once you start planning for weeks out you will have added too many complications to your list of Bug Out Bag essentials.
5. Remember the goal here is survival, not luxury. If you do not need it to survive, leave it behind.

OK, I’m ready to start, what are some Bug Out Bag Essentials?

I am not going to list everything here but here are some essential items that should be included in any Bug Out Bag list:

1. Map and Compass – how you will know where to bug out to
2. Multitool – infinite uses
3. Tarp or Emergency Shelter – can be used for shelter and signaling
4. Paracord – can be used to build shelter and about a million other things
5. Magnesium firestarter – this is better than matches as it will work when wet and you don’t have to worry about a gust blowing out your last match
6. Spare socks – taking care of your feet is one of the most important things you can do when bugging out. Dry socks will keep your feet blister free and you moving for longer. Wool socks or synthetic blend socks are superior to cotton.
7. Survival Blanket – lighter and smaller than a sleeping bag
8. LED flashlight – LEDs use less power than old fashioned light bulbs
9. Hand cranked radio – to get information on the situation as it develops
10. Water and high energy/low weight food such as energy bars

This is a very basic list of Bug Out Bag essentials, it would need to be tailored to suit an individual’s circumstances based on geography, duration, and number of people expected to be traveling with. Your personal Bug Out Bag contents may vary from your neighbor’s based on what you see as essential but this makes a good start for anyone with enough foresight to plan for the unforeseen.

Will I ever really need a Bug Out Bag?

Hopefully no one will be faced with a situation where they are forced to flee their home but as you can see with some basic planning you can take steps to ensure the safety of you and your loved ones.

Since just a few years ago, bedbugs have become a real problem in commercial hotels, motels and residential homes. I personally know of someone who was a guest at a friend’s home. Little did the hosts know that they actually had a problem of bedbug infestation and neither did my buddy. Unfortunately for him, some of the pests actually hid themselves in his suitcase while he enjoyed his brief reprieve only to relocate to his mattress when he returned home.

Finally, when my friend experienced incessant long-term annoying itching, he began to notice a chain of bites on his arms. That was when he decided not to waste any more time in receiving medical attention. Jumping into his car, he drove to an after-hours medical center to be examined. The prognosis was clear as day although the hour was way past the sun’s setting: my friend’s itchiness and rash was professionally diagnosed as bedbug bites.

Lest you think his ordeal ended easily, allow me to enlighten you: this was far from the case. Not only did the bedbug liability include general aggravation, embarrassment and intense discomfort, it also involved a lofty expense for the exterminator – something he would learn through his insurance agency was not covered by his standard Homeowners Insurance policy.

My friend’s ordeal was a genuine learning experience – albeit a painful one. Though another person may have considered bringing a lawsuit against his hosts who had infected him with the little bugs that made him ultimately incur damages and losses, to him it was simply not an option because it ran counter to his ethical code in relation to friendships. What the matter taught him, however, was to pay close attention to all the fine points of coverage before deciding on one policy – and to weigh needs not just by comparison of quotes.

While a standard Homeowners Insurance policy usually covers:

• Fire

• Lightening

• Sudden and accidental smoke damage

• Burglary

• Vandalism

• Damage from aircraft, automobiles, trucks and other vehicles

• Windstorm damage

• Hail damage

• Sudden and accidental damage from water

• Damage from weighty ice, snow and sleet

• Damage from riots and social upheaval

It does not cover:

• Flood damage

• Earthquake damage

• Frozen pipes (unless under certain situations)

• Losses incurred when your home was left vacant (according to the terms of the policy)

• Wear and tear or termite and bedbug damage that could have been avoided by prompt attention and maintenance.

Because my friend did not notice he had a bedbug problem immediately, the crisis intensified so much that it wrought damage that the insurance companies defined as something that could have been avoided with proper maintenance. Nonetheless, if he would have included a bedbug rider to his policy before the onset of the unwanted insects, he would have benefited from coverage.

You certainly live and learn. Now that the losses are a thing of the past, my friend knows always to discuss all aspects of personal and property coverage with his independent agent – and to be extra careful about where to set up temporary lodging!

The Parthenon of ancient Athens is considered to be a cultural icon of Western civilisation. Recently it has revealed optical principles that are now transforming our basic understanding of modern science, bringing about a new Renaissance.

In 1687 a Turkish military commander used the Parthenon to store gunpowder during a military engagement against a Venetian cannon bombardment. One Venetian shot exploded the gunpowder leaving the Parthenon in a state of ruin. The present restoration of the Parthenon used computer technology to measure where the various parts of the original structure fitted into place. From that process an important find was made. The Parthenon had been very carefully constructed to conform to lost optical engineering principles.

While records of much of ancient Greek science have been destroyed as pagan heresy we do know that there once existed optical engineering principles for a spiritual reality. Plato recorded that engineers who did not understand such optical principles were barbarians who were unfit to call themselves philosophers.

In her online book, A Fuller Explanation, Professor Amy Edmondson, Novartis Chair at Harvard University, wrote about Plato’s optical discoveries. She admonished Buckminster Fuller for his enthusiastic delight in new found truths but forgave him for appearing to take the credit for Plato’s engineering principles relevant to spiritual optics. We can assume that these principles relate to the optical secrets hidden in the Parthenon. The term ‘spiritual reality’ can now be equated with holographic reality, which is known to be associated with the functioning of liquid crystal fractal logic. That logic is relevant to Buckminster Fuller’s theory of synergetics, a spiritual life-force energy that acts in defiance of the logic that upholds modern mechanistic science.

During the 5th Century AD such life-force speculation challenged the power of the Christian hierarchy. Pope Cyril of Alexandria appears to have excited followers of Christianity to riot and burn scrolls belonging to the Agora, or Great Library of Alexandria. The Custodian of the Library, the famous mathematician, Hypatia, was murdered by the rioting mob. The 2009 Hollywood film, Agora, records the events leading up to her death in 415. History records that Saint Augustine, at that time, wrote that Hypatia’s mathematics belonged to the work of the devil.

Recently the NASA High Energy Astrophysics library has published papers explaining that the Classical Greek World-view was constructed upon the geometry of fractal logic. Modern science readily accepts that fractal logic extends to infinity but remains governed by the second law of thermodynamics. Einstein classified the second law as the premier law of all of science. As this law, also known as the universal heat death law, condemns all life to eventual extinction, any infinite fractal logic life-science becomes inconceivable. Augustine’s classification of Hypatia’s life-science as the work of the devil can be now seen to have seriously contaminated modern science, a contamination of great concern to Buckminster Fuller. Following NASA’s fractal logic publications it would seem reasonable to be able to demonstrate errors in the 20th Century popular evaluation of Augustinian philosophy.

Encyclopaedia Britannica lists Augustine’s mind as the crucible which most completely fused the Platonic tradition of Greek philosophy with the religion of the New Testament, influencing both Catholic and Protestant beliefs today. Fuller’s synergetic life form mathematics, derived from Plato’s spiritual optics, is now the basis of a new medical chemistry developed by three 1996 Nobel Laureates in chemistry. If Hypatia’s mathematics was tied to Plato’s fractal life-science logic, then Western scientific culture would appear to be in a state of spiritual confusion. In his book, Beyond Socrates, the noted Cambridge University philosopher of Greek thinking, F M Cornford. included Plato as one of the greatest fathers of the Christian Church, which is simply an impossible concept if Plato’s work is considered to be the work of the Devil.

The second law of thermodynamics completely governs every aspect of mainstream Western technological culture. While mainstream science readily accepts that the fundamental property of fractal logic is that it extends to infinity, this fact can not possibly be comprehended within Einstein’s 20th Century world-view, in which all life is sentenced to heat death extinction. Now we can see the significance of the title of Fuller’s book, Utopia or Oblivion.

This book echoed the thrust of the famous 1959 Rede Lecture, delivered by the molecular biologist C P Snow, who warned that unless modern science reunited with the Classical Greek life-science ethos, civilisation as we know it must be destroyed. The Parthenon’s lost optical secrets can be seen to be a rather important discovery.

Copyright © Robert Pope 2010

The greatest untapped resource of every country is her youth. They are loaded with potential energy, honesty and sincerity. They are the hope of the father land and of the future, the parents of the next generation, and the church of tomorrow. They live in an era characterized by phrases as love in, sit down, drop out, rumbles, riots, rebels, hippies, hoopla and hop heads. But they are not the terrible TEENS that many would make them to be.

Young people now a days experiment in drinking, sex and drugs because of natural, inbred curiosity the continuous brainwashing of advertising media and the lack of parental guidance. They experience severe social and academic pressure, there was book entitled “The roots of student despair” and said that as many 800 students a year look for psychiatric help because of intense frustration. There are shaky world condition at this point in time, unstable family foundations, stringent educational demands, pressure to conform to teenage society in form of escapism.

Some have disengaged in this way because they felt that there were better things in life. ‘But’ when you ask what they intend to do to obtain these better things they resort with empty phrases and no concrete suggestion. Others use out idea to run away from discipline, propriety, purity and as mean of having one’s own way.

Young people today have greater opportunities than ever before to make something of themselves, and become established for the future, but score of them are failing to grasp their opportunities. When our society has so much to offer why are they missing the chance to seize these opportunities? Why are they experimenting, becoming frustrated, seeking to escape? The answer is our young people in the whole world are overwhelming CONFUSED.

A healthy source of drinking water is the single most important item to have on hand in the likely event of an emergency or disaster, second only to breathable air. Food, of course, would be second on the most needed items in natural or human-made disasters or emergency. In most cases, after a disastrous event, the stores quickly empty out of the most crucial items such as water and food, next would be generators, flashlights, batteries, toilet paper, propane, cook stoves, etc.

Water is always the first to go. Not just from the shelves in the grocery stores and convenience stores but along with the electric and gas utilities, water is also turned off. When the water stops flowing from your tap, and you were not able to find any in the stores, what is your plan? In an extended crisis of weeks or even months, neighbors will be draining sources like swimming pools, spas, and water features. They will be knocking down property fences and gates to get at it hauling away buckets at a time and drained in days for sure. Now what?

Martial Law and curfews will eventually be enforced, resulting from wide spread riots and looting, starting first in the cities and then slowly migrating to the suburbs and then into the rural areas. Gangs and small marauding bands of thugs will start taking what ever they need or want, more than likely at gun point. You can quickly start to see you should have planned for such a time as this.

My purpose of writing this article is to alert and warn you that everyone who wants to survive a major crisis or disaster needs to stock, water, food, and protection. Protection? What am I saying? I’ll be blunt, and straight forward, only those that have planned will survive. Are you a pacifist or a Christian zealot? Are you willing to stand by and watch a female member of your family raped and murdered? Get a gun and learn how to use it! That said, let’s move on.

If the neighborhood is on fire, burning from house to house, you need to bug out. Do you have a bug-out plan in place or are you going to jump in your car and head for the nearest grid-lock? What about buckets of beans and rice, wood burning camp stove and cooking utensils. Water? You can only carry so much, and water weights 6-lbs per gallon. What you need is a way to purify any polluted water source using any heat source. Can’t I just use a filter? If you did your homework in advance, you would know that the American Red Cross, FEMA, Homeland Security and the CDC all recommend a non-electric water distiller, and strongly warn against any type filter in an emergency or disaster. Why a non-electric distiller? First, you will not likely have electricity. Second, they recommend boiling water to kill disease germs, bacteria, viruses, cysts and waterborne diseases. Distillers do just that! Plus all non-electric distillers can use any heat source, electric or gas stove, propane stove, barbeque grill, charcoal, camp stove or even a camp fire. There are only four or five non-electric survivor stills available.

Eight features to look for in a non-electric survivor still

1. Determine the volume of water it will purify per day. The production of distilled water from the available non-electric water distillers varies from 8 gallons per day to 18+. ( Take care you pick a model that will supply your family’s needs.)

2. Choose a survivor still based upon the gauge of the stainless steel boiling pot and the one with the sturdiest construction and heavy-duty materials and components. Especially since yours and your families lives will be depending on its performance under the roughest circumstances and conditions.

3. Most non-electric distillers are a severe scalding hazard capable of causing 3rd-degree burns. A child can quickly pull the boiling pot onto themselves as well as an adult. That is the last thing you need is a life-threatening injury during a disaster when hospitals may not be accessible for burn treatments. Pick a survivor still that uses a condenser cooling system and has the boiler snap-latched to the condenser preventing accidental scald injuries and the condenser water always remains at room temperature also preventing scald accidents.

4. Pick a survivor still that is automatic, so there is no need to manually add water to the boiler or continually dump and replace the condenser water as needed with some units. It is tedious and dangerous work handling the boiling pot and condenser. Most models require the condenser water to be dumped and replaced with cooler water for the still to function and if not replaced regularly, the condenser water can reach temperatures of 140- 150 F hot enough to cause third degree burns with just 2 seconds of skin contact. One survivor still model uses a 9-volt pump 5-watt solar panel with battery back-up to keep the condenser cool at all times, rain or shine, day or night and also automatically adds water to the boiling pot as needed.

5. Pick a survivor still that does not need to be level to operate as some models do. If you are in an outdoor camping situation and require a campfire as your heat source, you cannot be worrying about whether the survivor still is perfectly level or not as some brands need.

6. Some models do not have a closed system to prevent outside contamination from the air or debris from a fire. Pick a survivor still that is completely enclosed from the boiler through the cooling coils and the post filter and into a closed collection container. You will never need to worry the distilled water will ever get contaminated in the distillation process.

7. Choose a survivor still that can easily be packed up and transported with ease, in the event you need to bug out fast. You do not want to be dealing with a bulky boiling and condenser pot, especially if you’re on foot!

8. The greatest amount of distilled water is produced using a stainless steel cooling coil inside a condenser full of cool water. For this reason, avoid models that utilize pots of cool water and use the bottom to condense the steam. In this method, the steam is subject to contamination from the air and the lower surface of the pot. Pick a model with a cooling coil suspended in a condenser of cool water, the steam contained inside the coil, is protected from outside contamination. This method also produces three times more distilled water. That feature accounts for the greater cost of a non-electric survivor still with a stainless steel cooling coil and automatic features. The quality of the automatic model, the high volume of pure water and ease of unattended operation and the peace of mind knowing it cannot scald anyone justifies the increased cost. This model also comes in a 7-gallon bucket with a screw on Gamma Lid which houses all parts and has a handle for easy transport.

Which ever model or brand you choose, you will know that regardless of the source of water you will be able to turn it into healthy pure drinking water in any emergency or disaster.

For years police officers have used pepper spray as a non violent method of control in situations such as riots and perpetrators who resist arrest. This spray is also a favorite among hunters and other woodsmen who carry the spray as protection from bears, coyotes, wolves, and all other wild animals that may attack. As a self defense tool, mace pepper spray is a great option for those seeking personal security that is easy to use, non-injurious, and inconspicuous.

Pepper spray is a very simple irritant that causes the eyes to tear and temporarily distorts vision. The active ingredient in it is capsaicin which is derived from the same family of plants as chilies are. It is non-lethal and is expelled from a high pressure aerosol can to ensure that only the desired target receives the spray.

No one wants to walk around flashing a self defense tool. It’s one thing to be prepared; it’s another to announce it. This is a benefit of pepper spray. The spray comes in a small canister which can be easily carried in a purse or pocket. Even better, pepper spray is also available in small, everyday items such as rings, pens, and pepper spray key chains.

When you are protecting yourself your goal is not to maim the assailant, but rather to get yourself to safety. Pepper spray has the effect of stopping the attacker in their tracks before they even reach you. It will not kill, permanently injure, or disfigure the assailant, but will simply cause irritation. An added benefit of pepper spray is that its effects last until treatment is received. This ensures that the attacker will not get up and pursue you, but will instead be forced to sit, blindly, and wait for law enforcement to arrive.

Different countries have different laws regarding pepper spray and mace. Although most areas allow it in some form, you may need to comply with special guidelines. It is vital that you know the laws in your area, and in all areas that you travel to, when you carry pepper spray or any other self defense item.

As with any new purchase, conducting research is imperative to getting the best quality product. Not all sprays are made equal. Some do not contain enough active ingredients to be effective, and others may not contain any mace pepper spray ingredients at all. This means that you need to seek out a reputable merchant who is committed to quality products.

A great place to start is with http://www.bljselfdefenseproducts.com/index.php?target=categories&category_id=7 . This company offers a wide variety of self defense tools, including pepper spray and mace, and provides consumers with education on self protection. In addition to the online resources, BLJs Enterprises supplies its customers with personal attention to help ensure that they receive the self defense item that perfectly suits their needs.

Rajkumar Santoshi is a genius of a director. Khakee is just another addition to his great filmography which has been a collection of most memorable movies of all time. Like most of Santoshi’s earlier films, this one again is a social-issues surrounding ‘hard-hitting’ film. But make no mistake by challenging the entertainment this film provides, as it is a fast paced thriller which will surprise you every other moment with the vacillating situations and dynamic characters.

DCP.Anant Shrivastav (Amitabh Bachchan) is assigned a task of escorting terrorist Dr.Iqbal Ansari (Atul Kulkarni) from Chandangarh to Mumbai. Ansari is accused of having connections with a terrorist group and is charged for riots occurred in Chandangarh. Shrivastav readily accepts the mission which would give him a taste of glory, appreciation and honor, he’s been waiting for all his life. He along with his team members including Senior Inspector Shekhar Verma (Akshay Kumar), Sub Inspector Ashwin Gupte (Tusshar) and a couple of constables land up in Chandangarh realising that some force none other than Yashwant Angre (Ajay Devgan) is determined to make their mission impossible. Mahalakshmi (Aishwarya Rai) the only witness to have seen Angre joins the police team. The men in uniform now battle up against Angre when the latter attacks them at various points of the journey to ensure Ansari does not show up in Court. The entire journey exposes the actual faces of those who do not want the police team to make it to Mumbai and the survival of Shrivastav and team against brutal killer Angre and those involved.

Khakee is full of surprises. Continuous twists and turns never allow you to loose attention on the film. Thanks to the writing team of Shridhar Raghavan & Rajkumar Santoshi. There are various layers of all most all the characters and to make the situation more intense these layers not surprisingly, are conflicting to each other. This feature allows Santoshi to add a great depth in the drama of the film through agile conversations between the characters. The dialogues, again by Raghavan and Santoshi brings the best of characters alive on the screen even in a variety of situations. Take for example the scene where Shrivastav reminds the meaning of ‘duty’ to a fellow officer, or a scene where he addresses an angry mob after the entire police team has been declared betrayers by the media or the scenes where Shekhar flirts with Mahalakshmi; providing the audience with some laughable moments.

Khakee undoubtedly has some real good actors, and Santoshi quite successfully extracts the best out of everyone. The entire cast deserves an applause. To begin with the two protagonists; Amitabh Bachchan and Ajay Devgan both give their best performances. Bachchan marks another legendary performance as DCP. Anant Shrivastav. On the contrary Devgan as Angre, the conniving hunter shines in a negative role. Bachchan Vs Devgan can easily be the caption of Khakee as the audiences witness multiple clashes between the two through out the film. Akshay Kumar as Shekhar continues his good run in comedy. Also the actor proves his metal in the serious and action scenes of the film. Tusshar has grown multiple folds as an actor from his initial films. Aishwarya Rai as Mahalakshmi is the surprise package of the lot. Atul Kulkarni proves again that he is a great talent. Of the supporting cast Ashwani Kalsekar and Sabyasachi Chakraborty are good. Lara Dutta sizzles in a cameo appearance in ‘aisa jadoo’ number.

Santoshi offers a great action packed thriller with some fantastic action sequences including the opener scene of a police team battling up against terrorists, the village fair sequence where Shrivastav is chasing Angre, the Shekhar-Angre fight at the post office and the pre-climax clash between Shrivastav and Angre. The action scenes are supported by equally good background score. The only thing which should have been avoided in this film are the irrelevant songs, which pop up with bad timing and helps the screenplay loosen a bit of grip. In fact Khakee without songs would have been a much tighter script and ofcors cropped in terms of its actual length of 172 minutes. Still the effort by Rajkumar Santoshi to ensemble such a huge cast and doing justice to all the actors makes it a must watch. For a great showdown by the cast and crew of Rajkumar Santoshi’s Khakee, I would go for a 4/5 rating. Khakee is not to be missed!!!

Prisons are small self-contained societies that are sometimes described as total institutions. Studies of prison life have detailed the existence of prison subcultures, or inmate worlds, replete with inmate values, social roles, and lifestyles. New inmates who are socialized into prison subculture are said to undergo the process of prisonization. This involves, among other things, learning the language of prison, commonly called prison argot. Prison subcultures are very influential, and both inmates and staff must reckon with them. Given the large and often densely packed inmate populations that characterize many of today’s prisons, prison subcultures are not easily subject to the control of prison authorities. Complicating life behind bars are numerous conflicts of interest between inmates and staff. Lawsuits, riots, violence, and frequent formal grievances are symptoms of such differences.

For many years, courts throughout the nation assumed a “hands-off” approach to prisons, rarely intervening in the day-to-day administration of prison facilities. That changed in the late 1960s, when the U.S. Supreme Court began to identify inmates’ rights mandated by the U.S. Constitution. Rights identified by the Court include the right to physical integrity, an absolute right to be free from unwarranted corporal punishments, certain religious rights, and procedural rights, such as those involving access to attorneys and to the courts. The conditional rights of prisoners, which have repeatedly been supported by the U.S. Supreme Court, mandate professionalism among prison administrators and require vigilance in the provision of correctional services. The era of prisoners’ rights, however, was sharply curtailed in 1996 with the passage of the Prison Litigation Reform Act, spurred on by a growing recognition of the legal morass resulting from unregulated access to federal courts by inmates across the nation. The legislation, in concert with other restrictions sanctioned by the U.S. Supreme Court, has substantially limited inmate access to federal courts.

Today’s prisons are miniature societies, reflecting the problems and challenges that exist in the larger society. Women, HIV-infected inmates, geriatric offenders, and the mentally ill constitute special groups within the inmate population that require additional attention.

In recent years efforts to combat terrorism have presented new security challenges for America’s prisons. Concerns over the spread of ideologies supportive of terrorism have expanded as the number of imprisoned terrorist sympathizers grows. Some believe that terrorist groups might use radical forms of Islam to actively recruit prisoners who see themselves as alienated from the wider society. The opportunity exists for corrections administrators to take a proactive role, however, in monitoring communications and in observing behavior that might indicate potential terrorist activity.

Of course Sherlock Holmes would be the most famous one, but unfortunately he’s a fictional character created by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

One of the first most famous Private Detectives was Allan Pinkerton (1819 – 1884). He was by the side of Abraham Lincoln during the civil war. One of his more famous achievements was foiling an assassination plot against President Lincoln in Baltimore, Maryland. What many people don’t know is that he the father of several major investigative techniques such as surveillance of a suspect, known as ‘shadowing’ at the time, and also undercover work (he called it “assuming a role”).

Pinkerton served as the head of the Intelligence Service from 1861-1862 and used his men for undercover operations. They would pretend to be sympathizers of the Confederacy in order to gain vital military intelligence.

He also created the Pinkerton National Detective Agency. Some say that at one point it employed more men than the United States Army. The darker side of Pinkerton’s history included suppression of labor riots. Even to this day certain labor organizers use the word “Pinkerton” to describe those who side with the management.

Second most famous private detective is Eugène François Vidocq (1775-1857) – Was a French man with a very rough past who became one of the most famous detectives of all times. In his early life he had many run-ins with the law. He started as a teenager who stole silverware from his father. As an adult he went on to commit more serious crimes including fraud and being a raider while pretending to be an army soldier.

He turned his life around and started using his extensive experience as a former criminal to fight crime. He introduced plain clothes police officers who went undetected in seedy parts of French cities.

He also invented a tamper-proof paper used on checks. Once the compound was applied on a check it was no longer possible to discretely add additional numbers. He was also the first to employ ballistics examination to solve a case.

When a French noble woman was shot dead, he examined the size of the bullet. He was able to determine that the original suspect’s gun was not used in the shooting. He then examined the gun of her lover and the size matched. Presented with the evidence the suspect confessed to murder.