If you can't put Michael Jackson in jail, you might as well have his music performed in it.
Clips of prisoners doing coordinated dance routines have been popular for some time now on YouTube. Here is a BBC article about the inmates at the Cebu Provincial Detention and Rehabilitation Center dancing to Michael Jackson's Thriller.
It's really fun to watch and, I have to admit, this is one of the few videos (the other one is the algorithm march) on YouTube that made my stomach hurt from laughing.
I can't help but nit-pick the article, though. Let's start from the moderately serious and move on to downright silly.
FTA: He said it had helped "drastically" improve inmate behaviour.
I wonder how improvements in inmate behaviour was measured. Decrease in shivvings? Fewer prison rule violations? More warm fuzzy feelings and tingling sensations? Give me numbers, otherwise it doesn't hold up.
FTA: Inmates say to me: 'You have put my mind off ... thinking how to escape from jail...'
Seriously now, if you were an inmate, would you tell a prison official you were thinking of escaping?
FTA: "The inmates are very happy at the interest, they are always talking about it, and they ask how many people have watched it on YouTube"
They can see for themselves how many people have seen the video. It's right there on YouTube. What? They don't have broadband internet in prison? WTF??!!
And my personal favorite...
FTA: Other early choices included In the Navy and YMCA by the Village People, which were chosen so that macho inmates "wouldn't be offended by being asked to dance".
Yes, because there is absolutely nothing gay at all about the Village People...
