http://www.thespoof.com/news/spoof.cfm?headline=s4i20022

Epidemic Breaks Out in Prisons After Paris Hilton's Release
Written by Estevez Bruin
Story written: 08 June 2007

Los Angeles, CA: Following the release from prison of socialite Paris
Hilton after just 3 days of her 23 day sentence, news is beginning to
leak out of an epidemic of crying and mass hysteria that is sweeping the
nation's prisons.

Apparently the news that Hilton, 26, a notorious cry-baby and prone to
tantrums, had been released after spending two full days and nights
blubbing uncontrollably in her cell has spurred other prisoners to adopt
the same tactic in a bid to get their own sentences reduced.

Consequently, the floors of correctional facilities up and down the
country are now awash with tears as thousands of prisoners cry, weep,
wail, beat their breasts and throw themselves to the floor in an attempt
to engender sympathy from the authorities.

The situation has become so serious in some institutions that extra
supplies of tissues and crack teams of janitors trained in flood control
have had to be drafted in at taxpayers' expense.

One inmate, Rocky "the fist" Sampoza, speaking by telephone from
California's Century Regional Detention Facility where Ms Hilton had
been held, managed to control his lacrimation long enough to tell us
that after Hilton's departure just a few prisoners initially began
crying in a calculated attempt to obtain sympathy. But as more and more
prisoners joined in a form of mass hysteria began to take over and
within a few hours, even those prisoners who had resolved to keep a
stiff upper lip were affected.

"It was like a disease swept over the joint" said Mr Sampoza. "At first
it was just a few, but then it was more and more and now it's just about
everybody".

Apparently, in the worst affected institutions even some of the guards
have succumbed and have had to be sent home to lie down and get a grip.

Dr Hertzog Willhlem of the Bern Institute of Psychology, a noted expert
in the field of mass hysteria, told us "This is a very dangerous
situation. When you have so many people crammed together in an enclosed
place like a prison, it doesn't take much to set off an outbreak of
hysteria. So many of those people are under great psychological pressure
to start with that something like this is all that's needed to push them
over the edge".

Paris Hilton, meanwhile, was unavailable for comment as, according to
one of her aides, "she's all cried out".