Well here's a story that is bad from every angle; a multi-faceted diamond of misery.

Correctional officers at the Sampson Correctional Institution in North Carolina are being investigated for inmate abuse, after a group of prisoners banded together to claim the guards forced them to rub hot sauce on their genitals, "catch deadly snakes and kiss them [on] the mouth," and toss bunnies into oncoming traffic, in exchange for cigarettes, beer, and the privilege of working on road crew. (There was also allegedly some racist and homosexual stuff too, because you can only catch so many snakes in a given area.)

The six inmates first went public with their claims in July, by sending a hand-written letter to the U.S. District Court in Greensboro detailing the alleged abuse.

This blog post appears to be a typed version of that letter. In it, the inmates claim the hot sauce they were forced to rub on themselves (and ingest) was an "exotic" brand available only online or at specialty stores.

They also provide this list (which they say is on partial) of the alleged abuses that took place when they were working on the prison road squad:

1. Officers forcing three white men to force down a black man and grab his testicles and make him scream and swear that, "HE IS WHITE AND PROUD OF IT," as we sit in a church parking lot.

2. Forcing inmates to pull down their pants and boxers so the officers can witness us applying hot sauce directly on our rectums and testicles, which leaves blisters on the skin and in some cases leaves the skin raw for days.

3. Forcing a black man to grab a white man from behind and initiate homosexual gestures of pleasure, while biting his back.

4. Forcing us to catch deadly snakes and kiss them in the mouth.

5. Forcing us to catch rabbits and field mice for the sole purpose of throwing them in front of on-coming traffic to see them killed.

A spokeswoman for the state's Public Safety department said that the prison system learned of the allegations via internal grievances filed by the inmates – not the letter they sent to the court.

And who are the plucky prison underdogs we're rooting for in this case?

According to the Charlotte Observer, an armed robber, a man who killed his wife, and a man convicted of "indecent liberties with a child."

So let's just root for everybody.

[Charlotte Observer via AP // Internationalist Prison Books Collective // Image via AP]