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Overcrowded county jails and state prisons nationwide are creating problems for the U.S. marshals who transport federal prisoners. The U.S. Marshals Service says it is being told by local and state governments that there's no more space to house federal prisoners. That's a problem, since the Marshals Service has custody of more than 55,000 federal inmates, housed mostly in local jails. The federal government pays the county governments to house the inmates awaiting trial.

Here is an example of the problems it is causing. The Southwest Virginia Regional Jail Board decided not to allow federal inmates in its local jails. It means the feds have to drive the prisoners as much as 145 miles (each way) to make daily court appearances. The marshals say it is not only costly, but it eats up scarce manpower and even presents security concerns.

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Streamflow: A Reporting Tool

Thanks to Al's Morning Meeting reader Jim Sweeney for spotting this. The U.S. Geological Survey has a brand-new tool for journalists called "Streamflow of 2006: Water Year Summary." It is a summary of how the flow of water changed in 2006 compared to historic norms.

This is a cool tool for you, considering that spring floods are certainly not far away. In 2006, the study found, the Northeast experienced the highest annual flow on record since 1930.

(Click here for an explanation of "streamflow" and where it fits in the water cycle.)

Journalists may want to save these links for the flood season to come:

• The USGS operates a network of nearly 7,400 streamgages nationwide, many in real time. Current information derived from these stations is available here.
  

• Tables of data that summarize historical streamflow conditions by state, beginning in the year 1900, can be accessed here. These tables are updated every few months to reflect the most current streamflow data.

• The streamflow information is also used for water management, monitoring floods and droughts, bridge design and for many recreational activities. To obtain real-time and archived streamflow data and information, visit USGS Water Data for the Nation. This covers data for ground water and water quality, includes more than 1.5 million sites and averages more than 25 million hits per month.
  

• The national streamgage network is mostly run by the USGS. However, it receives funding from a partnership of 800 agencies at the federal, state, tribal and local levels. For more information on the streamgage network, click here.

Shorter Snowbird Stay

Snowbirds who escape the cold of the north for places like Florida and Arizona are shortening their stays this year. USA Today says that in Florida, where insurance rates have skyrocketed, rental rates have risen to cover the additional costs. And the snowbirds say they can't afford to stay as long as they used to.

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Emmy for MySpace Producers

Did you hear that the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences -- the Emmy people -- are going to hand out a statue for MySpace films, too?

"Like, uh, it would be, like, totally cool to win, like, one of those statue thingies," MySpace users responded.

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Al's Morning Multimedia

Every morning I am sending you an example of online multimedia for you to use as brain food.

The St. Petersburg (Fla.) Times sent a reporter to live in the county jail for a couple of days. I like how the paper went out of its way to explain to readers that they were not going undercover -- other inmates know he was a reporter. The paper has a large online site to support the newspaper story. Click on "48 hours on the inside" and then "Slideshow: 48 hours inside" to listen to the reporter explain why and how he did this story.

The first-person narration went places the newspaper story did not. About three-fourths of the way through the soundslide, you start to get a taste of the noisy confusion of jail life.

The Times has done a good bit of multimedia about jail life. This is a simple audio slideshow about mentally ill inmates.

I could imagine a project on this topic that just concentrates on the sounds of a jail at night with no narration.

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Editor's Note: Al's Morning Meeting is a compendium of ideas, edited story excerpts and other materials from a variety of Web sites, as well as original concepts and analysis. When the information comes directly from another source, it will be attributed and a link will be provided whenever possible. The column is fact-checked, but depends upon the accuracy and integrity of the original sources cited. Errors and inaccuracies found will be corrected.

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