But aren't violent games good as stress releif??? When I had a stressing day at work I pop in State of Emergency and mow down everyone I see and I feel better. :)

I agree with face777, why are prisoners being given any form of leisure activity?  I do understand that inmates need an outlet to keep their aggressions in check thus keeping an orderly prison but games?  Between the 3 meals a day, games, library, gym class, and conjugal visits I'm starting to wonder who has it better.  Our tax dollars hard at work.

An incentive for prisoners to try suicide? Sounds good to me.

Here's a rather humorous unintended conseqeunce of the whole thing.

A young man is feeling depressed and suicidal the prison gives him video games, he lieks them he feels better, he uses the games as escapism (in much the same way radio was an escape during the great depression).

However now that he's feeling better he's no longer suicidal, and he no longer gets to play the games. This will make him feel depressed again.

Catch-22.

I am actually a corrections officer.  And the facility I work at they arent doing this.  If they did the state would sell them to inmates for 3 times the actual reatil price, be required that the consoles are in a clear case, and only for inmates who do not get into trouble.   Currenty our facility allows the priveleged ones to buy those Atari type joysticks that you plug into your tv, and it has like 3 or 4 games on it *Pong, joust, donkey kong*  Personally I don't think its right for a government to be paying for this stuff.  And also, if someone says they are feeling suicidal, chances are they are just looking for some attention.  Anyone truely serious about it does it with no warning signs.  That I do know.

Boy, am I glad that in the real world, imprisoned people are allowed to play. In most cases their lives were pretty shitty to begin with, so just dumping them in a hole with no fun time whatsosever for years is hell. They aren't in there to go through hell, they're in there so they aren't out here. That, plus, they need to resocialise and learn how to live a better life. Again, I am so glad that it's not commenters from this site who have a say in how prisoners are treated, even if they're in prison for life. Most of what's in these comments is indescribably cold hearted and just plain unreasonable. Unless they're serious criminals, they deserve to have fun in life. You can't just steal years of their life away AND dictate on how precisely they're going to live during those years. You can make sure the time is not wasted, you can make sure they it's all a learning process, but to forbid these people to enjoy something, say .. TV, a good joke, a certain taste, or whatever else that doesn't harm them or anyone  else, that's just beyond any good reasoning. They *need* something positive to even understand what negative is, in many cases.