I like it when there are threads like this posted on this site. It allows me to provide my experience of working in a prison the last five years as a corrections officer. It's not very often that I am able to give expert opinions about anything. The following replies is according to how the state of Missouri prisons handle or treat certain situations of the best of my knowledge. If there is any questions or comments let me know.
Good grief. It's not like prison time isn't correlated with low education - they should be encouraging inmates to read whatever they can get their hands on.
I agree that they should encourage more reading because the education levels of majority of the prisoners in deplorable. Any form of education improvement should be encouraged in my opinion.
I don't think very violent criminals should be given violent material, including consensual (violent) sex. The question then becomes what qualifies as violence. But in general I agree with CA's approach to the issue.
Regardless if I agree with this or not you would have a hard time having this fly in a court room. If you banned it from one group all they would have to do is ask why isn't other group of prisoners being banned as well. As a result of this prisons are often more likely to ban them all together or not at all.
Aren't they still blocked from pen & paper RPGs because the folks in charge don't want to encourage "escapist fantasies"?
The biggest problem with this is if they were allowed then how could you determine the legit rpg from the phoney rpg that have escape plans hidden in them. In a prison rpg would cause a lot of problems that those that have never worked there would not understand. I agree with the idea of banning pen and paper rpg's.
I think that's a good question. Part of the problem, maybe, is determining if there can/should be a broad rule that applies to all inmates when it comes to things like entertainment.
There are several rules about entertainment at the prison I work at, for example we have a television in the day room for anyone to watch. The do have the option of buying television for their bunks. In the day room they are not allowed to watch any of the music channels regardless if they have music playing or not. This is done because some might find some music offensive. So in order to solve any conflict they are banned in the day room. If they have a personal television in their bunk area they can watch any of the cable channels which is paid for by the offenders including the music channels. They are required to wear head phones any time it's being used. They also can not have the volume loud enough where you can hear it. Before anyone comments the cable they have does not have any of the movie channels the closest they have for a movie channel is Fox. The best way to describe what they have is think about the smallest package you can get and cut that in half.
To be honest, I'm not sure how I feel about limiting even violent inmates from accessing certain (otherwise legal) material. I don't think it's something that should be done that liberally. But I can see how, in some cases, letting an inmate have access to certain material might be disruptive or undermine rehabilitative efforts.
I am not certain about violent offenders having limits on violent materials all together. At the prison I work at they are not allowed to have flat out violent pictures that depict violent crimes or victimization. Sexual offenders are not allowed to have any pictures of children regardless of the relationship with the pictured children. We also have a rule where all pictures of children will be fully clothed.
But I don't feel like any media with violence needs to be banned from prisons altogether. To be honest, I don't even think that erotica/porn needs to be banned altogether. I think there are far worse things that inmates can spend their time doing. I agree with CA's ruling on this.
I agree with the idea that anything with violence on television needs to be banned in the prisons. The only problem is if you have any form of cable being used in a prison you can not block out the violence. There is on average more violence on television on a daily base. As far as porn it is allowed in most prisons as long as the pictures do not show any form of penetration regardless if it has one or more people in it. To be honest Im not entirely sure what the rule on erotica is. If I remember correctly they can not write the material themselves but they are able to read published novels though.
That's what I can provide so far to this thread if there are any questions or comments just let me know.
Thanks
iron
