The American prison system is the haunted house of tomorrow

Eastern State Penitentiary.
(Image credit: Illustrated | Library of Congress, iStock)

If you believe the stories — and I'm not entirely sure I don't — America is very, very, very haunted.

We have haunted houses and haunted hotels, haunted courthouses and haunted cemeteries, haunted theaters, haunted restaurants, haunted bridges, haunted boats, and even entire haunted towns. Colin Dickey, author of Ghostland: An American History in Haunted Places, points out an obvious reason this country's dead are so unsettled: "There's precious little land in the United States that hasn't been contested, one way or another, through the years," he writes, alluding to the genocide of the continent's Indigenous peoples, a skeleton in our national closet. "Americans live on haunted land because we have no other choice."

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Jeva Lange

Jeva Lange was the executive editor at TheWeek.com. She formerly served as The Week's deputy editor and culture critic. She is also a contributor to Screen Slate, and her writing has appeared in The New York Daily News, The Awl, Vice, and Gothamist, among other publications. Jeva lives in New York City. Follow her on Twitter.