greetings.
just got toasted in the deft mailing list. I'm accepting the loss, so I'm
moving over here to continue the debate.
In the states they have convicts playing middle earth by smail. I got
toasted when I said that on average most people in jail are for small drug
stuff, and ar not sickos (ie child-molesters, murderers, rapists, etc). I
got a reply from a person who had three active convicts in his side, all
were murderers. Alas, sometimes averages are only averages.
questions
a) why don't we see this situation in the UK ? I think someone in the US
must be pushing PBM games as a hobby for the inmates ? Which leads to
b) if people are pushing PBM games onto the convicts in the USA prisons,
would people mind if Clint did the same thing for Harlequin ? This then
leads to
b) what would people do if they found three murderers in their side ? In a
joking mood I would tell the enemy. Would you steal money (let alone
burnt
his pop centres) of a person who has already killed a few people ? In a
serious mood, I wouldn't prejudge them and refuse to talk to them from the
start. But if they were not really interested in the game, then I might
later give them up. Alas, talking to players only by smail (and not by
email
or phone) would be a REAL bummer.
thanks
m
p.s I wonder what address my allies seen on their cover sheet ? If a
murderer was a smailer in a game I played, he would get my address even
before I got to say 'ick'.
RD: What a can of worms this opens up. OK, let's say Clint gets some
applications to play PBM from prisoners. I think he is bound to ask the
rest of us whether we want to play with such people. Would you want your
address given to a convicted crim?
Secondly, how do you know what the guy is in for? He might be a murderer,
but tell his team-mates he was sent down for a tax fiddle, so as to appear
harmless. Or he might be a petty thief, and tell you he's a murderer so as
to intimidate you. How you gonna check?
In passing, how do you know one of your current team-mates isn't a murderer
who hasn't been caught?
I was sent to prison about 25 years ago for a sizeable theft, when I was
young, stupid and opportunist. I served 9 months of a 12-month sentence
during which it became obvious that the old lags got treated a lot better
than first offenders on short sentences like like me. As a first offender,
I should have been sent to an open prison, but there weren't any vacancies.
You also had to serve at least a year before you were allowed out on
'association' ie table-tennis, tv etc., because again places were limited
and reserved for cons who had behaved themselves for a long time. The
longer your sentence, the more comfortable your life was made because the
screws didn't want any trouble from you.
We were usually 3 men to a cell not just because of lack of accommodation,
but because the authorities felt that the presence of a 3rd man would
discourage fights or sodomy which might occur between two. It was blatantly
obvious that drugs were rife but the screws didn't want to know. In the
nine months I spent inside, there were two suicides, a killing, a riot and
countless fights (none of which made the papers).
The prisoners themselves ranged from harmless, stupid young first offenders
like myself, thru saddos locked in a cycle of petty crime and prison because
they knew no other life, to junkies and if not murderers, certainly
kidnappers, rapists and child molesters who had to be locked up in solitary
for their own protection.
On a lighter note, when asked what my religion was, I noticed that nearly
everybody else had answered 'Sikh.' Querying this, I was told that Sikhs
could not be made to have their hair cut, on religious grounds. I became an
instant convert!
Having done my time, I led a life which if not entirely blameless, at least
never risked prison again. It's not an experience I would wish to repeat,
and in answer to m, I would not wish my address to be known to a single one
of the people I met inside.
Regards,
Richard.
