Inventor Taking On Toiletries In Prisons
The Washington Post:
Long-standing challenge: how to keep prison inmates from turning their toothbrushes and shaving razors into weapons.
Unlikely man taking it on: Paul Biermann, an inventor at Johns Hopkins University’s Applied Physics Laboratory, whose work to date has tended more toward fields such as biomechanics and outer space. Now, he proposes toothbrushes and shaving razors with altered molecular properties.
It is no small problem. Inmates extract blades from razors, then wedge them into the melted ends of toothbrushes to make slashers. They sharpen the ends of toothbrushes into small daggers by rubbing them against concrete.
Biermann did and soon found himself touring Maryland and Pennsylvania institutions. He and his Hopkins colleagues collected data from prisons nationwide, learning how convicts weaponized seemingly anything - a bucket handle, plastic wrap, a padlock encased in the end of a whirling sock.
Back in their lab, Biermann and his colleagues strived to make normal-size replacement products. The […]
Original post by Rich and software by Elliott Back