Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

New York Times article.

Prisons can restrict the rights of inmates to nerd out, a federal appeals court has found.

In an opinion issued on Monday , a three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit rejected the claims in a lawsuit challenging a ban on the game Dungeons & Dragons by the Waupun Correctional Institution in Wisconsin.

The suit was brought by a prisoner, Kevin T. Singer, who argued that his First Amendment and 14th Amendment rights were violated by the prison’s decision to ban the game and confiscate his books and other materials, including a 96-page handwritten manuscript he had created for the game.

Mr. Singer, “a D&D enthusiast since childhood,” according to the court’s opinion, was sentenced to life in prison in 2002 for bludgeoning and stabbing his sister’s boyfriend to death.

Prison officials said they had banned the game at the recommendation of the prison’s specialist on gangs, who said it could lead to gang behavior and fantasies about escape.

Dungeons & Dragons could “foster an inmate’s obsession with escaping from the real-life correctional environment, fostering hostility, violence and escape behavior,” prison officials said in court. That could make it more difficult to rehabilitate prisoners and could endanger public safety, they said.

The court, which is based in Chicago, acknowledged that there was no evidence of marauding gangs spurred to their acts of destruction by swinging imaginary mauls, but it ruled nonetheless that the prison’s decision was “rationally related” to legitimate goals of prison administration.

“We are pleased with the ruling,” said John Dipko, a spokesman for the Wisconsin Department of Corrections, who added that the prison rules “enable us to continue our mission of keeping our state safe.”

News of the decision spread quickly though the network of blogs that discuss such games and to those devoted to the law, where many commentators revealed perhaps more of their own history as gamers than they might have intended. On The Volokh Conspiracy, a legal blog, a particularly rollicking discussion ensued, kicked off with a post by Ilya Somin, an associate professor of law at George Mason University, who asked, “Should prisons ban ‘The Count of Monte Cristo’ on the grounds that it might encourage escape attempts?”

In an interview, Professor Somin said the prison’s action was reminiscent of a media frenzy in the 1980s surrounding the supposedly pernicious effects of gaming. “Ideally, you should really have more evidence that there is a genuine harm before you restrict something,” he said.

The comments accompanying Professor Somin’s post ranged from hoots of outrage over the ban to constitutionally nuanced discussion, but they showed that there were many lawyers who at some point owned a pouch with some dice of more than six sides. And none of them seemed to think that the risk to the nation’s prisons could be found in the works of Gary Gygax or other creators of the genre.

As Andrew Oh-Willeke, a lawyer in Denver, wrote, “If more inmates were über-nerdy D&D players, life would be good.”


Various articles:
D&D banned at Wis. prison because it promotes gang activity
Be sure to read the court ruling link in the middle of the article.


To see the core of the argument you need to click on the link within the article linked to and read on there.

Two things come to mind:

1. The root complaint that caused the D&D materials to be confiscated.

"Prison officials enacted the ban in 2004 after an inmate sent an anonymous letter expressing concern about Singer and three other inmates forming a "gang" focused around playing the game"

An inmate told the guards Singer was involved in a gang, so the guards had to act. Not acting on suspected gang involvement makes it harder to crack own on real gangs, which is BIG problem in US prisons. Gang members would say, if Singer can be in a gang, why cant I. Thus the prison has to crack down on him justified or not.
It is entirely possible the inmate forsaw this sent the letter simply to stir up trouble and stop another inmates enjoyment.

2. A generally poor attitude towards the hobby.

What is alarming are the reasons given:

"Singer was told by prison officials that he could not keep the materials because Dungeons & Dragons "promotes fantasy role playing, competitive hostility, violence, addictive escape behaviors, and possible gambling," according to the ruling. The prison later developed a more comprehensive policy against all types of fantasy games, the court said."

The "promotes fantasy roleplaying" issue is of key interest. Why is that of itself bad? If anything it is a coping mechanism useful for a long sentence offender.

Looking around at gamer comments online since this story broke, on the boards many believe he will be safer and easier to control if allowed this escape route. As gamers share gamer mentality i think this core of opinion has some merit, one that is overlooked by lawyers and social workers who might not understand the culture of gaming. Again we are not privy to specific facts of the case. But conversely this appears to now be a general ruling, which opens the door in this state at least.

I am less concerned with the individual plaintiff (fethhim) than with the concept: gaming = bad. Once you get that dogma in the system its hard to get it out. This is also my prime focus. We have a test case now, expect this decision to ban roleplaying to spread. it is then only a short jump for it to be considered unsuitable in other institutions. Now non-penal institutions will have a harder time of banning materials as the core rights lie with the prison not the inmate whereas residents of other institutions including mental health asylums have core rights above the institution.
I do not fear a ban outside, but I can see increasingly stronger proactive discouragement, something normally not a problem outside fringe religious lobbyists.

Love the Penny Arcade take on it .

Wierd thing to ban. I can see the gang angle, but really, is D'n'D that big an issue? Wierder to me is that inmates are able to get incredibly strong doing weights in prison. Though I wouldn't cut that either, it's just funny to me that they would ban dungeons and dragons.

Well everyone knows that D&D turns you into an ultraviolent psychopath highly motivated to do the immense amount of physical labor involved in escaping prison.

I mean whenever I played D&D I immediately afterwards went out with my homies and beat up five or ten bums, killed a few rival gang members, then ran fifteen miles straight.

If they had proper chain gangs, time for D&D would not be an issue.

Well we can't actually punish people in prison, that would be cruel.

And unusual.

Depends on your philosophy about detainment. I reckon rehabilitation and forgiveness are better than punishment and suffering.

I know, wacky, considering I'm not even a christian.

Da Boss wrote:Depends on your philosophy about detainment. I reckon rehabilitation and forgiveness are better than punishment and suffering.

I know, wacky, considering I'm not even a christian.

Respectfully, you reckon wrong. There is no rehabilitation in US prisons. You'd have to point me to a prison system that does rehabilitation. There is only warehousing.

The Christian thing would be to get them to stop being criminals and protect the rest of society from them until and if that is proven. You have to atone before forgiveness works.

Good point about atonement actually. Point to you, sir.

I was aware of that about US prisons, it sounds rough. I haven't read deeply into it.
As to a system that works, well, unfortunately most of the programs are founded on wooly social science or bad cognitive psychology, so they don't often have great success rates. If psychology as a discipline ever pulls it's head out of it's arse, we might see improvement.

The day you prove to me that you can rehabilitate someone I'll be all for it. Better useful members of society than publicly funded daycare. Until then I'll settle for actual punishment.

If punishment doesn't rehabilitate people, what's the point in it though?
It's not that much of a deterant, because most criminals never expect to get caught.

I still like the idea I heard a long time ago from a Right wing Talk radio DJ who said that prisoners should be forced to do 2-3 hours per day on a big hamster wheel which would power dynamos to create electricity.

Good exercise and useful to society.

I know it wouldn't work for a huge number of reasons, but the image amuses me

Da Boss wrote:If punishment doesn't rehabilitate people, what's the point in it though?
It's not that much of a deterant, because most criminals never expect to get caught.

Ok then, what do we do? If rehabilitation doesn't work and punishment doesn't either what other option do we have? Shake our heads in disappointment at them? I suppose we could always do it Saudi Arabia style but I doubt that would go over real well with most people. It might not deter but it certainly does cut down on repeat offenders.

Da Boss wrote:If punishment doesn't rehabilitate people, what's the point in it though?
It's not that much of a deterant, because most criminals never expect to get caught.

Punishment as a form of rehabilitation works most excellently on children and animals. Carrot and stick-fundamental economics.
plus we have roads that need fixing. get to it chain gang!

Aha, now we're getting somewhere!
Yes, absolutely, punishment, but with reward. Criminal feths up, chain gang, electrodes to the nads, whatever. Criminal shows progress towards rehab, rewards- TV in cell, more freedoms, D'n'D books back. Gotta be a mix of both. Glad to see we're really on the same page (ish).

Da Boss wrote:Aha, now we're getting somewhere!
Yes, absolutely, punishment, but with reward. Criminal feths up, chain gang, electrodes to the nads, whatever. Criminal shows progress towards rehab, rewards- TV in cell, more freedoms, D'n'D books back. Gotta be a mix of both. Glad to see we're really on the same page (ish).

we are actually. Evdently I am a little less hardcore than you are though.. electrodes thats just wrong!

For those of you in the states who know of him I for one supprt that sherriff in Arizona who has his prisoners live in tents, wear pink underwear, and eat balogni(however it is spelled) all day. When told he wasn't treating the women fairly he said ok, and made the first ever(in the states) all female chain gang. I say elect this man to run our prison system and we will have a ton less crime.. Anyone know his name off chance>?

Arapino? or Sheriff of Arapino (kind of like Sheriff of Nottingham, if you substitute sandwiches for plate steel).

Da Boss wrote:Aha, now we're getting somewhere!
Yes, absolutely, punishment, but with reward. Criminal feths up, chain gang, electrodes to the nads, whatever. Criminal shows progress towards rehab, rewards- TV in cell, more freedoms, D'n'D books back. Gotta be a mix of both. Glad to see we're really on the same page (ish).

That's fine by me. Frankly a punishment system that lacks rewards isn't working so much as simple abuse. I'm not close minded on this point I'm just not seeing all that many options for dealing with the problem.

I'm right there with you, I suppose I just like to talk about ideals a lot.

Make them ALL play Dungeons and Dragons with Fraz as Dungeonmaster.

With real dungeons.

And dragons.

I like yer thinking there. Plus its an investment program-to genetically create a dragon (or just import some mother in laws but I repeat myself).

However we're distracting from the Aztec Princess topic here, oh wait thats not the topic?

I could live with a topic shift if it's to that.

Tyyr wrote:Well everyone knows that D&D turns you into an ultraviolent psychopath highly motivated to do the immense amount of physical labor involved in escaping prison.

I mean whenever I played D&D I immediately afterwards went out with my homies and beat up five or ten bums, killed a few rival gang members, then ran fifteen miles straight.

The guy did kill someone with a sledgehammer, but i'm not gonna transpose the conditional. I don't really have any sympathy for the guy and anyway prison shouldn't be fun.

malfred wrote:Make them ALL play Dungeons and Dragons with Fraz as Dungeonmaster.

With real dungeons.

And dragons.

and Frazzled has to dress up as the one from the cartoon too.

Empchild wrote:For those of you in the states who know of him I for one supprt that sherriff in Arizona who has his prisoners live in tents, wear pink underwear, and eat balogni(however it is spelled) all day. When told he wasn't treating the women fairly he said ok, and made the first ever(in the states) all female chain gang. I say elect this man to run our prison system and we will have a ton less crime.. Anyone know his name off chance>?

Sheriff Arpaio

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Arpaio

Great for prison conditions. He keeps prison costs down by treating prisoners like prisoners. No abuse, but he keeps their nutrition regular but with cheap food that they have to make themselves (lots of bologne like you said). They have pink underwear, they take shifts in tents, and do road work. This is where everyone thinks Joe is great.

Unfortunately, his non-prison concepts are... well, fethed. His raids and crackdowns are almost entirely politically driven, as in, he will raid certain areas depending on which politician or local police chief he doesn't like. He thinks anyone darker than himself is an illegal alien, and he tends to not let them go to court, coming up with ridiculous excuses of "prison lockdowns" to prevent trial hearings for people who haven't even been accused of something yet. He does NOT work with local police or the state patrol. He has pissed off the military on multiple occasions. On top of that, he is an egomaniac. Watch a youtube interview with him and look at the pictures. Yeah... he surrounds himself with pictures... of himself.

He is 50% godsend and 50% wackjob. HIs prison policies are something to look up to, but his police work is horrifying.

As for the issue at hand, I think prisoners should have the opportunity, when they have the chance, to read, learn, etc etc. I think that should include things like constructive games, like chess, D&D, etc. But I don;t think they should have anything in their cells. A library is cheap to keep on site and thats where the games should be. Not where they are being locked up. The rec time is where it should be. As far as I understand prisons at least.

We have prisoners maning our lunch room... I must ask them about this.

Empchild wrote:We have prisoners maning our lunch room... I must ask them about this.

Not sure if thats how Arpaio runs the kitchens. I think they literally make their own lunches. Not serving them to others.

EDIT: Or are you referring to the OP... cuz then, um, disregard.

haha no I work at the national gaurd state HQ and our lunch room is entirely run by the DOC(depart. of corrections).