Charlie de Tar

There are more than 1.6 million people currently incarcerated in the United States — and more than 7.3 million people on probation, in jail or on parole. Yet people "on the outside" know very little about what goes on in American prisons. A new website developed by the MIT Media Lab is giving prisoners the opportunity to blog about life in jail. 

Between the Bars is a blogging platform for prisoners. Because prisoners almost never have access to the internet, the project works by scanning letters from prisoners sent through the postal mail and posting them on the web. Visitors can transcribe the scanned letters. Comments left by visitors to the website are mailed back to the authors in prison.