The Chicago Tribune ran a fantastic article about a state pen in Punjab, India. The inmates are lifetime offenders, mostly nabbed for stealing, assault, and vandalism. Even the murderers are safe from capital punishment though. That’s because in India, it’s forbidden to kill monkeys.
The thief threatened children with bricks and ripped the buttons off shirts. He stole tomatoes from one home and snatched bread from another. Down the street, he briefly fled with a differential equations book and beat a calculator with his fist. He was one bad monkey. And last week he was sentenced to life in prison for his crimes, inmate No. 13 at the country’s only known monkey jail, where very bad monkeys are sent to live out their remaining years.