Cassette Tape Sales Booming in Prisons

It seems a bit ironic that the only demographic of people not stealing music these days happen to be in jail for theft and other various crimes. Prison mail order catalogs are capitalizing on the inability of the inmates to access the internet and offer them a legal source of music.

The format wars in the prisons are based upon which media can be used as a deadly weapon. CD's are not allowed in jails because they could conceivably be used as skivs (if you've ever broken a CD apart you'll understand why). Cassette tapes fit the bill as being prison safe, but only after the metal screws are manually removed.

The owner of Pack Central (prison mail-order company) started stockpiling cassette tapes five years ago and says that cassette tapes have become increasingly difficult to find due to the labels abandoning them as a format. From the NY Times article it sounds as though he can have large production runs done of specific tapes to fit his customer's needs. Pack Central is doing roughly $600,000 in sales per year with cassette tapes alone.

Prison Mail-Order Cassette Best Sellers:
- Lil Wayne's "Tha Carter III"
- Mariah Carey's "E=MC2"
- Usher's "Here I Stand"
- Rihanna's "Good Girl Gone Bad"
- Nickelback's "All the Right Reasons"
- Leona Lewis' "Spirit"
- Lyfe Jennings' "Life Change"
- Al Green's "Greatest Hits"
- Linkin Park's "Hybrid Theory"
- Michael Jackson's "Thriller"
- Pink Floyd's "The Dark Side of the Moon"
- Best-of collection by the Stylistics

As soon as I saw Thriller in the list, I immediately thought of this video...