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Super-Recidivists

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In January, according to Atlanta police, 20-year-old Nathaniel Lee Stanley was released from Fulton County Jail (charges against him, which included violation of controlled-substance laws, had been dismissed) and immediately drove off in an SUV he carjacked in the jail’s parking lot. And in March Kelly Handy, 37, retrieved some personal belongings that were held by Wheat Ridge, Colorado, police after her arrest the previous week on charges including burglary and forgery. She then went into a police station bathroom, emerged a few minutes later wearing a wig, and left the building. Detectives followed Handy and watched her spend the afternoon taking about 30 pieces of mail out of three mailboxes before rearresting her.

(1) “Trio Arrested for Breaking In and Performing Dental Work,” Town Talk (Alexandria, Louisiana), December (two people, one an employee at a dentist’s office, tried to perform a late-night repair on a friend’s partial filling); (2) “Jail Teaches Prisoners to Shoot,” West Australian (Perth), April (an official at Eastern Goldfields prison allowed aboriginal inmates to train with air rifles, reasoning that upon release they might need to hunt animals for food).

The District of Calamity

Art accompanying story in printed newspaper (not available in this archive): illustration/Shawn Belschwender.