Under the headline “Prisons: They’re not just for criminals anymore,” USA Today offers yet another article about prison tourism with a twist:

But Americans excel at re-imagining their prisons as tourist attractions. Dozens of former U.S. jails and prisons now charge admission, most notably San Francisco’s Alcatraz, operated by the National Park Service. Audio tours feature riveting narration by former inmates and guards.

But several other institutions have kicked it up a notch. As reported here recently, the Ohio State Reformatory in Mansfield (seen in the 1994 movie The Shawshank Redemption) hosts a dozen or so weddings a year, plus “Glamour in the Slammer” bridal shows.

In Moundsville, W.Va., the Saturday all-night ghost-hunting tours are are so popular they’re sold out through 2010. (You can try again in January 2011, when new dates will be announced.)

But some of the most creative prison programming comes out of Philadelphia’s Eastern State Penitentiary. This Saturday and Sunday it’ll host a Prison Break Weekend, in which “visitors can hone their escape skills” by crawling through a tunnel designed to mimic one used in a 1945 escape attempt by 11 inmates who dug a 90-foot tunnel.

Bring the kids! No, really, says Eastern State’s program director Sean Kelley. While the former prison’s programming typically isn’t geared to children younger than 7, this weekend is billed as “family-friendly” with lots of fun interactive activities. (Shiv-making presumably not among them.)

When I say that Americans are disconnected from the horrors of prisons, this is a classic example of what I mean.  As anti-prison activists, we have a massive re-education job to do so that the broader public realizes just how obscene this type of “entertainment” really is.  It’s worth taking a look at photographer Mark Murrmann’s meditation on prison tourism called Invitation to a Hanging. His work puts this whole issue in its proper context.