calsfoundation@cals.org
February 20, 1967
Newsweek reported that inmates at the Tucker State Prison Farm (now the Tucker Unit of the Arkansas Department of Correction) in Jefferson County were punished with beatings, whippings, torture with pliers, and needles put under their fingernails, in addition to the use of the Tucker Telephone (a torture device invented in Arkansas that sent electric shock through victims). Much of the abuse was carried out by guards and the prison trusties who reported to them. The 1980 movie Brubaker, loosely inspired by events within the Arkansas prison system, depicts an inmate named Abraham being tortured with the Tucker Telephone.