Prison Chocolate Ban No Laugh Riot

We were initially delighted when the phrase "Swedish prison" came across the news wires, given the vast storehouse of research material at our disposal— shop keeps who archive a Smithsonian-like collection of similarly themed films, as well as a steady inventory of single cigarettes so we could get a sense of what prison life is all about without all those communal shower come ons.

Unfortunately, without a working knowledge of the Nordic language, and the Ikea warehouse not returning our harassing phone calls (not to mention being indisposed to Googling the phrase “Swedish prison” for fear of incurring some librarian's bifocaled stink-eye) we were unable to figure out exactly what kind of penal institution ‘Brinkebergsanstalten’ is, the mouthful of a prison at the center of the following story. So, with no English language reports specifying the gender of those incarcerated, we decided to eschew modern crime statistics and 200 years' worth of temple-probing criminology and assume it’s a massive minimum security facility for women with daily sheer tube top workouts for the prison volleyball team and unscheduled conjugal visitations for inquisitive bloggers.

According to reports, Swedish inmates have been banned from putting their kitchen detail/extortion savings (that would otherwise be put toward shanking the least popular guard), toward the purchase of holiday boxed chocolates amid concerns over alcohol content. This measure resulted in the warden-undermining spokesperson for Kraft Foods, the provider of the crowbar motel confectionery to note, “In order to consume the equivalent of one shot of schnapps, you have to eat some 32 pieces of confectionery. Gosh, what effort." No less effort than what cell block 2D's finest distiller of Ziploc hooch has to expend, who could certainly make good use of such a sweetener to take the toxic edge off the soggy bread and rotten fruit whiff of ‘Orange Jack.’

In related news, a California school district suspended a 12-year-old for having a piece of chocolate candy filled with a half-ounce of booze. The 7th grade scofflaw received a suspension notice that would not look out of place in the type of institution mentioned above, for having "possession, used, sold, furnished or been under the influence of any controlled substance, alcohol or intoxicant."