No Dragons in the Dungeons..
Posted: Thu Feb 03, 2011 12:26 am
Shamelessly nicked from a Pexxa post on the old CSB...
and from a local perspective..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.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/27/us/27 ... .html?_r=1
Any thoughts on what prisoners should have a "right" to while incarcerated...Authorities at the territory's jail have moved to tighten up prisoners' access to the internet in the wake of security scares in recent weeks.
Version 2.0 of the Alexander Maconochie Centre's policy on computer use by inmates, giving prison management wider powers to ban a prisoner from using the internet, email and other resources, was posted on the ACT Government's website yesterday.
The move comes after a prisoner used internet access to send a garbled message to The Canberra Times and the newspaper uncovered the hole in the Alexander Maconochie Centre's computer network which had been used to send the expletive-laden message.
A week later, it emerged that a man police describe as a ''computer expert'' on remand at the jail accused of a range of child-sex offences, including using children to produce pornography, was among two inmates who had been given unfettered access to the web through their official work detail.
Accused paedophile Aaron James Holliday was employed along with a sentenced prisoner to work as administrative assistants with the prison's education program. The men were each paid more than $60 a week for performing their duties.
The second inmate, who cannot be named for legal reasons, is serving a nine-year sentence for raping his wife's 10-year-old brother.
The discovery that the pair had managed to secure unsupervised internet access sparked a police investigation into their online activities while behind bars.
Under the new policy, which takes effect immediately, access to internet, email and to the LEARN online resource remains a ''privilege'' for prisoners but can be withdrawn for any reason at the superintendent's discretion.
http://www.canberratimes.com.au/news/lo ... 53016.aspx