Club Fed
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Club Fed refers to any prison that the speaker thinks of as being less severe than is fair. Club Fed is a pun on the "Club Med" chain of all-inclusive resorts.
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[edit] Fiction versus reality
The term often implies a minimum-security or low-security prison intended to house low-risk, non-violent offenders, often those convicted of minor drug-related or white-collar crimes. The relative safety and comfort of the low-security prison is a stark contrast to life in the Supermax prisons of legend.
A convict of white-collar crime, though their crime may far exceed the monetary sums involved in a typical "blue-collar crime," may often receive lighter sentences. The disparity in punishment is typically rationalized by the difference in violence, the less violent nature of white collar crimes makes such crime (and hence its punishment) appear less severe. Despite this justification, the disparities are often claimed to be unjustly extreme by advocates in support of prison inmate rights, and those opposed to white-collar crime. The difficulty of assessing the financial cost of violence and its often extreme impact on victims, however, may lead others, such as victims-rights advocates, to support the harsher penalties for violent criminals.
The term may also be used to imply both social class and race distinctions when applied to sentencing, claiming that Caucasian and/or affluent criminals typically receive light prison sentences in more comfortable settings, while non-Caucasian (typically black, Hispanic) and poor offenders typically receive heavier sentences in less hospitable conditions.
[edit] Club Fed in Canada
In Canada, "Club Fed" was used derisively to describe the Joliette Institution For Women, the Joliette prison where serial killer Karla Homolka was held, because of the prison's supposedly luxurious conditions and lax restrictions, claims the prison has denied.
