If they hope to enjoy video games while incarcerated, British prisoners need to be very well behaved - or suicidal.
That's according to a report on ITN which details a new video game directive from the UK's Prison Service:
The document bans prisons from spending taxpayers' money on buying hardware or computer games for inmates with immediate effect.
Last year the Government admitted spending more than £10,000 on 80 PlayStations and 15 Xboxes for young offender institutions... Only inmates on the highest level of Incentives and Earned Privileges (IEP) and those at risk of suicide will be allowed to play computer games.
In granting gaming rights to inmates who are suicide risks, the Prison Service seems to be accepting the idea that video games are a stress reliever.
Prisoners who do earn gaming priveleges won't be playing GTA IV or Manhunt 2, however. R18 games will be banned from British prisons as of September.
Comments
Re: Suicidal Inmates Granted Video Game Privileges in UK Prisons
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.
Re: Suicidal Inmates Granted Video Game Privileges in UK Prisons
18 != R18. There are no R18 rated games. The R18 classification is for hardcore porn.
The fact that 18 rated games were allowed in prisons is lol
Re: Suicidal Inmates Granted Video Game Privileges in UK Prisons
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.
Re: Suicidal Inmates Granted Video Game Privileges in UK Prisons
You cannot be serious. Taking away toys of any kind from prisoners just because you think they do not deserve having any kind of fun in their lives is worse than treating them like animals. These people are in the the prisons for only a certain amount of time, and once they leave there they are supposed to behave better than before. But what is the point of keeping them in a dark cell with no way of stress relief whatsoever? No fun, no life! They are forced to stay put for years and years, that's the punishment. But having them stare at walls the entire time, that is just plain torture. I thought we were better than that.
Re: Suicidal Inmates Granted Video Game Privileges in UK Prisons
I agree. We shouldn't be treatiing these people like animals. Animals have no choice but to act to their nature. These people on the other hand had a choice to their actions and they made it quite poorly. Hence, animals should be treated much better than these people.
Re: Suicidal Inmates Granted Video Game Privileges in UK Prisons
A leopard can never change it's spots - these 'people' WILL offend again in most cases. No amount of botany classes will prevent a kiddy raper from any 'urges'...
Re: Suicidal Inmates Granted Video Game Privileges in UK Prisons
Surely if your right there is little point to prisons, why not just take people to a small room in the back of the court to be shot in the head once proven guilty.
Re: Suicidal Inmates Granted Video Game Privileges in UK Prisons
re: shooting in the head comment - there you go - perfect solution - couldn't have said it better mysef. no re-offending and cost to the state is minimal (a bullet). Mind you, they'd probably have to go through three weeks of health & safety first over here, plenty of time for lodging appeals, and blame alcohol, society or 'having *nothin to do* for the reason they are little shits.
Re: Suicidal Inmates Granted Video Game Privileges in UK Prisons
The purpose of prisons is not rehabilitation. Its punishment. The reason that people are not taken to the back of the court and shot is that their crime did not warrant that kind of punishment. That is like asking "why don't you shoot your child in the face for stealing a cookie from the cookie jar.". Different crimes warrant different punishments. By your theory of rehabilitation then anyone who is sent for prison for life (no chance for rehab) should be shot.
But for those who are sentenced to death, the shooting them in the back of the court would speed up the process and save the tax payers lots of moneh.
Re: Suicidal Inmates Granted Video Game Privileges in UK Prisons
What about people that are in for life? And why should we waste tax money on fuck-ups like that, who may just commit more crimes when they get out?
Time-out during recess = staring at a brick wall. And you know what? Time-outs work. Kids won't break the rules when they risk having to sit at a wall having no fun. Think we should let kids have fun during time out? That will just make them more likely to break the rules, because the consequences won't matter.
Now, i don't have a problem with, say, a kitchen, or something like that, being put into a prison cell. Let the prisoner learn a trade, give them something productive to do, but not something FUN to do. Few prisoners (as in, only the worst of the worst) are put into real solitary confinement like you say. Most prisoners are allowed time to exercise, etc etc, even write letters to people.
The one thing that I find wrong with our justice system, is that if someone goes to prison for only a few years, after they get out, his/her life will never be able to go back to normal. They can try to get a job, but many won't hire felons. They'll be outcast be their neighbors, all sorts of punishment. The younger ones won't be able to go to college, they won't have the money and won't be accepted for being a felon.
/breathe
Re: Suicidal Inmates Granted Video Game Privileges in UK Prisons
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.
Re: Suicidal Inmates Granted Video Game Privileges in UK Prisons
Sadly, Britain is one of the countries where you pack your bags before going to prison ... I'm all for rehabilitation, but we've got to get it right first ...
Re: Suicidal Inmates Granted Video Game Privileges in UK Prisons
An incentive for prisoners to try suicide? Sounds good to me.
Re: Suicidal Inmates Granted Video Game Privileges in UK Prisons
Might I remind you we're talking about young offenders here? Or are you insinuating we should encourage kids to commit suicide?
Re: Suicidal Inmates Granted Video Game Privileges in UK Prisons
No we're not - it's both Young Offendors Institutes (little NEDS (Non-Educated Delinquents who should be shot or herded up onto an island and left to mug and rape one another to death) and ACTUAL prisons. Actul prisons require the convicts to purcase the consoles for themselves. These are the same prisons with Sky TV and gourmet chefs making appearances, I might add...
Re: Suicidal Inmates Granted Video Game Privileges in UK Prisons
I mean hell, I'd be likely to just steal a gun and fire it off in a bank if my life was really downhill if this is how inmates are treated...
And seriously, suicidal inmates? In my opinion, if someone really wants to kill themselves, they should go ahead and do it. They have (in America) the right to life, which also gives them the right to give up that right, right?
Re: Suicidal Inmates Granted Video Game Privileges in UK Prisons
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.
Re: Suicidal Inmates Granted Video Game Priveleges in UK Prisons
Absolutely disgusting - they should be stripped of all form of leisure - they're in prison as a punishement, not a fucking Butlins camp holiday.
One more example of Brown's dictatorship - he wants the entire populace to be in prison - controlled, regulated, and much more comfortable and cheap than not being inside. Bastard needs to be assassinated. He'll kill the country by 2010, the very latest he HAS to hold an election, which he knows he will loose.
Re: Suicidal Inmates Granted Video Game Priveleges in UK Prisons
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. :)