Cinematic alternatives to Prison

I think were getting perilously low on fresh ideas how people can spend their time instead of rotting in a jail cell. There are so many other creative (not unusual) punishments out there for us to explore, that were mostly left with either rotting in a cell or a gas chamber, or if you're famous doing PSA's for the rest of your life. I think a good place to start garnishing ideas is Hollywood, they've provided us with a colorful and resplendent well for us to draw ideas from to quench the thirst of interesting punishment.

Name: Gulag

You've gotten out of worse things

Movie: Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome
Mad Max busted a deal and thus, had to face the wheel. On the wheel, was a punishment called "Gulag," This (for some reason) entails that you are bound and must wear a large paper-mache head so you can't see. And then after you're placed on a horse facing backwards, it walks into the desert until it dies. As creative as this is, you have to wonder in a dystopian sun baked future, how many horses do you have to spare? As it is now, our equestrian cup isn't exactly overflowing with superfluous steeds, but I guess we have to follow the wisdom of the wheel.
Creativity Level: A+ I guess living in a desolate wasteland gets your creative juices flowing.
Punishment Factor: 5/7 If only our legal system was so just.
Good Alternative For: Deportation.
Something tells me Texans already have something like this in place, so it doesn't seem that far a stretch for them to just add paper-mache and donkeys, (although paper-mache is a french term so I guess we can call it an American-Mache Head). And lets be honest Texas is mostly deporting Mexicans, but this works for everyone who wanted to see more of the Sonoran desert. I've left places more unceremoniously than lashed backwards to a burrow, so I can't quite complain.


Name: Life Sucker

Hoses affixed to the nipples, temples, and abdomen. This is all perfectly heterosexual.

Movie: Princess Bride
Westley is captured and taken to Christopher Guest's secret torture chamber the "pit of despair", and after one of the most flamboyantly homosexual exchanges between Count Tyrone Rogen and Prince Humperdinck we see that Westley is hooked (topless) to a Water torture device, or as the albino helper calls it "The Dreaded life sucking machine." For anyone keeping score, we've got a machine that sucks something out of dudes, foppish outfits, and a topless dude inside someones "secret chamber." I think the intended use of the machine is that at variable settings it sucks a number of years out of your memory, reverting you to an earlier age. Although from the film it doesn't look like you're going to walk around thinking you're an 8 year old again I think it just retards you a bit assuming you get smarter as you get older. I'm not sure how this device with water and suction cups can achieve this, but like a proper machine at its maximum setting can kill you. Or according to the movie it "mostly" kills you as Miracle Max describes it, Which is kinda stupid because a flame thrower can "mostly kill you" too.
Creativity Level: A Anything that harnesses the power of water, cogs, and albinos to aid in torture gets a gold sticker for creativity.
Punishment Factor: 6/7
Good Alternative For: Parole.
I think if you get sentenced to 20 years in prison there should be some semblance of effort to have it all add up to 20 years. If you do 15 and get the back 5 off for good behavior, they should put you in the Life sucker at setting 5. This works because you avoid having to serve 5 more years, and as a bonus you might forget five of the years you were in. This machine on maximum could also be a good alternative in California to Lethal Injection, as it seems many people have a problem with the death penalty, this machine would only leave you mostly dead, letting state legislature and judicial system avoid the touchy gray area of capital punishment in favor of municipal punishment.


Name: Boo-box

You can see Glenn Close's Shemalic eyes twitch in fear of the boo box here.

Movie: Hook
Hook takes it upon himself early in the film to punish a sailor for insolence with the boo box. The boo box is a small claustrophobia inducing chest, with a hole in the top so you can drop emperor scorpions onto your prisoner. Emperor scorpions aren't all that venomous, but that's really like saying "Getting shot with a the .22 caliber isn't as bad as the .45", which may be true but you're still getting shot, AND you're in a tiny box. As impulsive as Hook is, it wasn't actually insolence that got the sailor thrown in the boo-box, it was stupidity. Most of the sailors that agreed to crew for a mincing, garishly costumed captain can't be all that smart, so I'm guessing the punishment is pretty survivable as many of them would have ended up in it the first few days under way.
Creativity Level: B+
Punishment Factor: 3/7
Good Alternative for: Community Service.
Who wants to see Ray Lewis doing PSA's or Hugh Grant picking up trash on the side of the road? This punishment would only take a day, and local officials could get money charging admission to networks to televise it.


Name: Bog of Eternal Stench

Some of the local color trying to avoid smelling for eternity.

Movie: Labyrinth
Even the realm of the Goblin King needs a sewage outlet, and for them all the poo in the land drained into The Bog of Eternal Stench. Fittingly, waste from a magical realm has magical properties; In the film it is foretold that anything soaked in the fluids of the bog will smell forever.
Creativity Level: C
Punishment Factor: 5/7 This ranking should really be a 3, as you probably would get used to the smell, but then again most of the people around you wouldn't.
Good Alternative For: Rapists.
This is a rather simple concept. If you rape someone, you get hucked into the Bog. This will give an advantage to the targets of repeat rapists, as they will have the advantage of possibly catching the scent of bog and be able to flee while walking alone in a parking structure, or wandering into an alley. And if you aren't a cloak and dagger repeat alley rapist, and more corporate repeat rapist, try getting close enough to slip a rohypnol into a Manhattan at a trendy club when you smell like that. Its also tough to rub enough chocolate and perfume on yourself to attract children at that point too, believe you me.


Name: Crow Cage

Val Kilmer was a force to be reckoned with on the set of Willow as he could easily defeat his co-stars in hand to hand combat.

Movie: Willow
Val Kilmer is sentenced to die suspended in a small cage on a desolate highway. In and of itself, not that interesting, but taken in the context of the movie, ie, hang in a cage for nearly two weeks and become half dead from exposure only to be freed by midgets by bargaining for childcare is an interesting thing. From the clues the movie gives us, Madmartigan did something having to do with cowardice, and I'm not sure if that deserves death, but I guess times were different back then, when dark witches destroyed Nackmar castle (Armenia circa 1480?), and the Nelwins (midgets in merchant greek) still lived in the wild and not just in captivity (Dwarven registration act 1986).
Creativity Level: D+ Pretty basic.
Punishment Factor: 2/7 He did get out after all.
Good Alternative For: Anything.
This is a very versatile punishment, and I think could be implemented along major highways and intersections to entertain commuters. Any offense worth putting someone away for any amount of time should have a corresponding option to be put in a crow cage and take your chances out in the wild hoping you can convince someone to free you, or because of the diversity of spots you can be put, find you, and then free you. The ACLU would probably take issue with this, so just to be safe, anyone caught freeing a prisoner of a crow cage will have to serve as much time as the person they set free was supposed to.


Name: Robot Foot Torture

I think it was one of these little guys flipped over and crying out in pain.

Movie: Return of the Jedi
Somewhere in the bowels of Jabba's palace a there is a section devoted to torturing robots. Specifically a machine that holds them in place, flips them over and presses red hot brands onto their robo-feet. Which at first is a strange concept: A robot with sensations? Feelings? How odd, but upon closer examination, this proposition is quite delicious. Its not only the physical sensation of pain, but the robot in star wars was actually screaming and pleading against its punishment belying a not only pain, but dread and fear. Last week my vacuum cleaner broke, as rarely as I vacuum it was unacceptable that this machine designed for doing one task is failing to perform it, with a swift violent kick that sent it whipping down a flight of stairs it began to work with a renewed vigor, and from what I thought was a fear to be kicked in the same manner. A few days ago my hard drive failed. After removing it from the case I couldn't just throw it away, my disgust was unleashed as I took it outside and flung it down onto the pavement and took a five iron to it. While that didn't fix the hard drive I felt I had some closure with it.
Creativity Level: B-
Punishment Factor: 7/7
Good Alternative For: Mechanized incompetence.
I wish that some of the machines and computers I use on a day to day basis could feel pain. I've spent too long waiting for an explorer window to figure out that that another computer isn't on the network any more, I wish a quick strike to the case would let it know I'm displeased with it. I wish the network printer that I use would feel the harsh reprimands of my words and also the force of my knuckles striking bypass tray when it fails to print two sides of a page properly. I would hand over copious amounts of money for a device I could hoist my cellphone onto and sear hot marks into its cheap nokia casing and hear it wailing in pain confirming that it now regrets dropping the call as much as it should. It must know my anger, and it must know fear.