Orlando, Fla. – America loves a good mug shot. The more frizzed, frazzled and frantic, the better.
An Orlando entrepreneur has seized on that fascination, recently starting JAIL, a weekly newspaper filled with nothing but unflattering booking shots – page after page of them, with only a few ads in between.
“A mug shot is a couple notches below your driver’s license picture,” said Devin James, 41. “And everyone takes a messed-up driver’s license picture.”
Mug shots have gained popularity online thanks to sites like The Smoking Gun, which feature embarrassingly bad arrest photos of pro athletes, musicians and Hollywood A-, B- and C-listers – among them, a wild-haired Nick Nolte, a grumpy-looking Glen Campbell and a blowzy Wynonna Judd.
In JAIL, the stars are the readers’ neighbors, charged with everything from drug possession to prostitution to murder.
James said he got the idea nearly a decade ago after doing a three-month stint in the Orange County Jail following a loud fight with a girlfriend.
Before jail and JAIL, James’ journalism experience consisted of reading the occasional magazine or newspaper.
James said he distributes more than 8,000 copies weekly and struggles to keep stores stocked. The paper sells for $1 at about 175 mom-and-pop convenience stores in three Florida counties.
Thousands of arrests each week in the paper’s distribution area provide plenty of material, all obtained free from police and sheriff’s departments.
Sindy Lowe, who manages a gas station that sells JAIL, said she has recognized several people in the paper.
“Once I even saw my sister-in- law in there after she violated her probation,” Lowe said. “I didn’t even know she had been arrested.”
