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PlayStation (Games) Your Rights Online

Missouri Prisons Pull Violent Video Games 133

Posted by Zonk from the kill-a-man-and-get-no-mario dept.
blueZhift writes "Missouri's most violent criminals will no longer be permitted to play violent video games that simulate the kind of offenses that resulted in their incarceration in the first place. Prison officials pulled the games, which included such killfests as Hitman: Contracts, once they were informed of their violent content. Science fiction and sports games were not pulled as part of the sweep, so more nerdy prisoners will not be affected by the changes."
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Missouri Prisons Pull Violent Video Games More

Missouri Prisons Pull Violent Video Games

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  • Martha Stewart Omnimedia games titles too? (Score:5, Funny)

    by orthogonal ( 588627 ) on Thursday December 02, 2004 @03:32PM (#10977944) Journal
    "Missouri's most violent criminals will no longer be permitted to play violent video games that simulate the kind of offenses that resulted in their incarceration...."

    OH NOES!1!!11!

    No more playing "Martha Stewart: Living" or "Martha Stewart: Baking and Basting for Bubbette" in prison anymore? That is cruel and unusual punishment!

  • The real question: (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Issue9mm ( 97360 ) on Thursday December 02, 2004 @03:32PM (#10977946)
    I think the real question is why they had them in the first place? Yes, I understand the argument that it's easier to keep them in line if they're docile, but c'mon... I can't tell you how many times I've wished for a place where the meals were prepared for me, could play video games, and not have any responsibilities to worry about (like work).

    The more prisons offer to the inmates, the more inclined people are to WANT to go there. Even if they commit a lesser crime for the shorter sentence, it might end up being a choice vacation spot.

    -9mm-
    • Freedom is one of the most important things a person has. Most people wouldn't want to go to jail even if it was luxurious, and even if they were poor.

      That said, I agree that giving prisoners things like this doesn't exactly help to keep recidivism down.

      Rob
      • That must be why there are so few people in prison.
      • "I have the leisure to study without the distractions of having to support myself. I view prison as a sort of utopia with constraints." - Theodore Streleski

        Streleski was a math student convicted in the early 80's of killing his PhD advisor with an axe, after spending some unreasonable number of years as a grad student.

        I guess no more playing "Riemann Space 2001 : Invasion of the Monoids" for him.
        • Streleski was a math student convicted in the early 80's of killing his PhD advisor with an axe, after spending some unreasonable number of years as a grad student.

          Sounds like a clear case of justifiable homicide to me.

    • Re:The real question: (Score:5, Funny)

      by BTWR ( 540147 ) <americangibor3@yah o o . c om> on Thursday December 02, 2004 @03:39PM (#10978028) Homepage Journal
      it might end up being a choice vacation spot.

      Yeah - 3 square meals, no work, no rent, oh... and that pesky forced-anal-raping and beat-downs daily*. But hey - free cable and video games!

      *from my watchings of Oz - my skinny, white, jewish ass would last all of 45 seconds in a prison.

      • Yeah - 3 square meals, no work, no rent, oh... and that pesky forced-anal-raping and beat-downs daily*. But hey - free cable and video games!

        As funny as he makes it sound, I really can't imagine with all of the appaling stuff that can happen in prison (*) that a friggin' video game would be an incentive to want to be in there. Free cable neither.

        (*) Which oddly enough much of my understnading also comes from shows like Oz, and I suspect I'd be on about the same timeline as the parent poster as far as s

        • hahaa, that reminds me of a promo for Oz before it's 5th season...

          A skinny businessman is walking the city street of manhattan, casually. He crumbles throws out a piece of paper into a public garbage. It bounces off the top and onto the street, next to a NO LITTERING sign. The guy is like "whatever, it's a friggin piece of paper" and keep walking. 4 steps later, the camera zooms in to his face, and he's petrified...

          The next 10 seconds show VERY FAST and brief flashes from Oz: people being raped, bea

      • It's different if you're one of the guys big enough to be doing the forcing and the beating down, I'd imagine.
        • Which ties into the fundamental problem with violent prisons: the kind of monsters who'd beat a man down and rape him are the ones who should be punished harder, and yet they live like kings in a lax prison system.

      • actually (Score:2, Funny)

        by Llevar ( 788850 )
        ...your skinny white jewish ass might be quite the commodity there.
    • From what I picked up on the radio about this, basically the prisonners bought the games themselves and they were overlooked by an administrative clerk who overseas the prisonners' purchases.

      On a side note to this, basically the rule of thumb on purchasing games is not necessarily based on content, but more ESRB rating. So they're not going to all Mature ESRB games to be purchased.

      I guess that means no more Leisure Suit Larry: Larry Goes Meets Ben Dover in the Penn.
      • See- that's the problem with this whole outsourcing thing.

        Some prison official got the idea to outsource, (or send 'overseas') the task of determining if the prisoners purchases were appropriate or not.

        I can't expect someone in India, making only a few Rupees a day, to understand, or care, what prisoners in the US should be doing with their free time.

        Once again- outsourcing is the cause of our troubles.

    • we treat our prisoners poorly compared to the rest of the developed world for one. We treat our poor even worse, but they don't seem to be turning themselves in in record numbers.
    • FYI: Prisoners still need to buy those items, the prison doesn't give them those items for free. They could also be gifts from relatives (yes criminals do have family and friends more often then not) not to mention that the majority of people in prison are in there for drug possession charges rather then act such as homicide, buglury, rape, or assaults (hell in short, violent crimes.)

      • Re:The real question: (Score:5, Informative)

        by *weasel ( 174362 ) on Thursday December 02, 2004 @04:21PM (#10978702)
        In NY state the split is actually 38% of felons are in jail on drug charges, and almost 30% of those have also been convicted of a violent crime. So you've got about ~25% of felons in there because of mandatory minimums.

        http://www.drugpolicy.org/statebystate/newyork/r oc kefellerd/index.cfm

        Nationally the average is closer to 21%
        http://www.enotes.com/americas-prisons/

        Granted, these are certainly dramatically increased over the last 20 years -- but they're not nearly the 'majority' you're tossing around.
        • ...Marc Mauer, assistant director of the Sentencing Project, maintains that "in 1980, 6 percent of inmates were in for drug offenses. That's up to 21 percent in 2000."...

          Allow me to revise for clarity

          ...More than a quarter of the state and federal inmates were in prison
          for drug offenses (234,600 prisoners) in 1993. Prisoners serving a
          drug sentence increased from 8 percent of the state and federal prison
          population in 1980 to 26 percent in 1993. In federal prisons, inmates
          sentenced for drug law violations w

        • While you may have a point (although a sibling to this comment strongly disagrees) something that both you and the parent poster don't pay attention to is all the crimes that are drug-motivated. People committing crimes to get drugs or money for drugs is a real issue.
        • umm the largest population of prison inmates is non-violent drug offenders.

          The U.S. nonviolent prisoner population is larger than the combined populations of Wyoming and Alaska.

          Source: John Irwin, Ph. D., Vincent Schiraldi, and Jason Ziedenberg, America's One Million Nonviolent Prisoners (Washington, DC: Justice Policy Institute, 1999), pg. 4.

          http://www.drugwarfacts.org/prison.htm
      • FYI: Prisoners still need to buy those items, the prison doesn't give them those items for free. They could also be gifts from relatives

        The article really isn't that long; would it have killed you to at least glance at it before posting?

        • Re:The real question: (Score:3, Interesting)

          by kenp2002 ( 545495 )
          I did ... The games were paid for from inmates' purchases ...

          I was referring in general how prison items are purchased. The state doesn't buy those items. The inmates do by generating their own revenue. TVs in cells are pruchased individually by inmates who earn money doing work. Other, larger group items, such as excercise equipment are purchased by committiee in many cases(Varies from state to state of course) In many states even the books in the library are in-mate funded.
    • "The more prisons offer to the inmates, the more inclined people are to WANT to go there. "

      Have you ever been grounded before?
      • Yeah, and as the adage goes, groundings became a lot less of a punishment after I had a phone, TV, PC and gaming system in my room. Who cared that I couldn't go out and do stuff? I had Quake to keep me company.

        You know what punishments WORKED tho? The ones in which those amenities were taken away.

        -9mm-
        • "Yeah, and as the adage goes, groundings became a lot less of a punishment after I had a phone, TV, PC and gaming system in my room. Who cared that I couldn't go out and do stuff?"

          I had all that crap and I still hated being grounded. You know the adage "The grass is always greener?" Just knowing you can't go out and do something...

          Hehe kinda funny in a way, I'm dealing with a variant of this feeling right now. I'm working on some 3D shots for a friend. I love doing 3D shots. If I were doing this on

          • NanoGator, Issue9mm ... you're both right. You both value different things. To 9mm, you didn't value your freedom as much, so taking away your freedom without taking away things to do that you enjoyed wasn't effective. NG, you value your freedom more, so even being able to play Doom in your room was no compensation for missing out on what your friends were doing.

            The ideal justice system would react similarly: it would merely take away specific things that each offender values as punishment. To those wh

    • I can't tell you how many times I've wished for a place where the meals were prepared for me, could play video games, and not have any responsibilities to worry about (like work).

      You're thinking of College.


    • The more prisons offer to the inmates, the more inclined people are to WANT to go there

      Just look at Australia for example.

      Sorry.

    • In Pennsylvania, they actually PAY you to go to prison. That's right, do hard time and make hard cash at the same time. It's only something like 7 cents an hour, but that can still add up after a couple years, especially when you don't have anything to spend it on.
      • I believe this payment is for doing work in the prison industry system, not just for sitting around watching TV.
        • My information (sans the actual rate, which I don't recall) came from a security officer that works in the prison. His exact words were, "You get 3 hots, a cot, and x cents an hour for your patronage."
        • Bleh, in too much of a hurry. Append to the officer's quote: "...without having to lift a finger."

  • Nerdy? (Score:3, Informative)

    by Pluvius ( 734915 ) <pluvius3NO@SPAMgmail.com> on Thursday December 02, 2004 @03:32PM (#10977953) Journal
    Since sports games are by far the most popular genre of video games for the casual player, it'd be more accurate to say "normal prisoners will not be affected."

    Rob
  • I could understand prison guards feeling uncomfortable watching inmates trying to kill the cops in video games all day.

  • In other news... (Score:4, Funny)

    by daeley ( 126313 ) * on Thursday December 02, 2004 @03:36PM (#10977994) Homepage
    In other news, 387 prisoners in Missouri were shivved in separate incidents yesterday. Reports are conflicting at the moment, but assailants were overheard screaming things like "M*therf*cking Zergling Rushing F*ck!!!" and "I'll show you a m*therf*cking hat trick, b*tch!"

  • Yes (Score:2, Redundant)

    by CptChipJew ( 301983 ) *
    Cuz nerds love nothing more than a good round of Madden 2005 :D

  • You'd have thought they'd realize this... (Score:3, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 02, 2004 @03:36PM (#10977997)
    ...when the prison administrator was asked to pick up a game called Grand Theft Auto.

  • In other news... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by GeekWithGuns ( 466361 ) on Thursday December 02, 2004 @03:37PM (#10978011) Homepage

    Missouri's prisoners are allowed to play video games!?!

    Isn't is supposed to be a punishment to be in prison? Part of that is not being allowed to have stuff like this to enjoy. Prison is supposed to suck!

    • prisons suck. US prisons are the worst in the "civilised" world. Seems to help our crime a lot, eh? Maybe rehabilitation would be better?
      • Most crime in the US is actually a direct result of the War on Drugs. End that and legalize or decriminalize at least some more drugs and you'll see crime rates drop considerably. Oh, and divert some of the massive amounts of funds we're wasting on that "war" to education and welfare for further decreases. That, of course, would have a positive effect on our prison system.

        Rob

        • Re:In other news... (Score:5, Funny)

          by saintp ( 595331 ) <{stpierre} {at} {nebrwesleyan.edu}> on Thursday December 02, 2004 @03:59PM (#10978284) Homepage
          But then how would we oppress Black people!?!?!?
        • Sure decriminalization would lead to a drop in crime rates. But let's be honest when we are talking about it.

          Incarceration would likely drop(who knows, maybe drug use leads to violent crime irrespective of current laws...) but the activities that are currently considered crimes would likely increase. The most dramitic increase would probably be in possession. I am still for at least trying moderate decriminalization, just not for the feel good viewpoint that 'crime rates' would drop.

          To be clear, of course

          • Incarceration would likely drop(who knows, maybe drug use leads to violent crime irrespective of current laws...) but the activities that are currently considered crimes would likely increase...It is less clear how decriminalization will effect the rates of crimes related to laws that are not changed.

            I can't tell whether your post is pragmatic, or succumbing to FUD. Our current prohibition laws are totally unscientific as it stands (and they were in the '30s when it all began). Our justification for t

            • Hopefully pragmatic. I lean towards thinking that use of stuff like Heroin and Cocaine would probably decrease if policy was shifted from incarceration to treatment. That said, I have trouble believing that use of marijuana would decrease. There are just too many people who are casual users now.
              • so the use of marijuana would increase.... so? Do you think it would be any more of a problem than alcohol?

                • If you check the current data suggests link, you will find that it suggests that decriminalization/legalization will lead to a decrease in marijuana use. This is what I was speaking to. I don't think I really injected much of a judgement about the problems it would or wouldn't cause into what I said.

                  As for what I think, marijuana is likely to always be less of a problem than alcohol. It's use is certainly less prevalent, and the line between use and abuse isn't quite so dangerous(to other people). To me,

        • You can't spend that money on education without more teachers. The lack of instructors is one of the biggest problems facing education today. The other one is lack of places to put them, which is a result of the apparent lack of money. Here in California they have alloted money for remodeling but none for new construction, which is ass backwards. They should be alloting money for repairs and for new schools and nothing for prettying up the cafeteria.
          • The reason why there are no teachers is that teachers below the collegiate level don't get paid worth a damn, even taking the four months of holidays into account. It's the old chicken/egg syndrome.

            Really, though, we don't need to put more funding into education as much as we need to stop giving all of the money that's there to pencil-pushers.

            Rob
            • I strongly agree. If we expect teachers to work for peanuts, why not the administrators? From what I understand the president of the community college which I attend and at which I work as an intern (don't ask... but I will tell you that my job does not require kneepads) makes as much as any other four people employed by the college. That doesn't make any sense to me, because the school is mostly engaged in self-destruction. Maybe if you actually got something for all that money.
              • 4x more? What's wrong with that?

                If the job has far more than 4x the responsibility (if you screw up the consequences are more than 4x worse compared to a 1x job) then being paid 4x isn't such a bad thing. Of course there shouldn't be a linear correlation, but there should be a correlation.

                • Except that the school is rapidly circling the toilet bowl with the majority of its problems only increasing. The penalty is being allowed to retire from the position quietly and gracefully so you can go on to fuck up another school, or some company somewhere. The consequences for the employee are the same either way - you quit. Because it's a school it's nigh-impossible to fire anyone.

      • Re:In other news... (Score:3, Insightful)

        by Pxtl ( 151020 )
        US prisons suck not because of the perks and bennys like games and TV that the prisoners receive, its the laissez-faire attitude to rape and violence in the prison.

        IMHO, if prisoners were treated like teenagers at a tough-love boot-camp (no recreation, no life, no privacy), but never assraped or shivved or anything, then prisons would be more oppressive but simultaneously less cruel.

        The games are orthogonal to the problem. I think we'd all rather be in a Canadian prison without an XBox than a US prison
      • I agree that rehabilitation is certainly worth a try, but the way to rehabilitate people is not to go soft on them and give them a comfortable prison with video games. Rehabilitation must be a hard kick in the ass, which requires a lot of hard work and commitment from the inmate, with the understanding that if they screw up they have years of hard time ahead of them instead of an early release. That is the only way any kind of rehabilitation will be possible. Going easy on prisoners only guarantees more pro
        • you make it sound as though crime is a mere preference. Perhaps if we taught people while in jail so that they could make more than 6$/hr when they got out it would be less appealing to hold up a liquor store. Most of the people in jail aren't bad people. Most of the people in jail don't particularly want to be criminals, it's just that that is what they know how to do and they think that it's the best they have.

          a "hard kick in the ass" won't get you jack shit, and please cite some thing for "only guara
          • In other words, it's society's fault. Same bullshit, different day. That line of thinking, of trying to understand the criminal, caused society to go to hell in the 60s and 70s. In parts of New York you could hardly walk down the street without getting mugged. Now that we've seen through that stupidity and started locking criminals up where they belong, regardless of how they "needed" to rob that liquor store in order to have enough cash to buy that 8 ball. If you want to find out more about problems people
    • In other news, geeks who installed folding at home on school computers without authorisation also get sent to prison...

      Seriously, not everyone in prison necessarily should be there.

      And additionally, some people have committed crimes that I hardly consider worth incarceration.

      My biggest problems with prison is that it's supposed to be a place where people are rehabilitated and prepared to rejoin society. But, anymore it's treated as a place to isolate and lockaway people, which only increases the chances
    • Yes. That's why the only games they can play are Daikatana, Extreme Paintbrawl, and Jaws for the NES.

  • Hmm (Score:1)

    by say__10 ( 768448 )
    As a Missourian (unfortunatly) I say good deal on pulling the games, but as a nerd I am angry at this comment: "They're not afraid to engage in violence, unlike the nerd sitting in front of his computer." Painting everyone that sits in front of their computer as a nerd, and in a derrogatory manner. For shame, we can be just as violent! And we know how to camp and bunnyhop too!
  • Criminals should not be allowed to hone their talents while doing time.

    The penal system should try and make sure their "bad guy" skill-sets are at least a *little* rusty when they inenvitably get out.

  • Time to go kill some people. (Score:3, Funny)

    by Xaviar21 ( 790883 ) on Thursday December 02, 2004 @03:39PM (#10978025)
    Oh man.. You get video games in prison?

    Free food, a free bed, and free video games.

    Why haven't I killed someone, yet?

    • Probably because of the daily anal rapings.
    • My girlfriend works in a California prison, and although they get coddled a lot, it's still not a place you would want to be in.

      Indeed, there are a lot of nice things like TV in their cells (which the prisoners have to purchase with their own money, not the state's), free medical care (there are lots of lawsuits when medical care is lacking), and free education.

      There are, however, lots of disadvantages:
      You of course can't go anywhere, the food is pretty crappy, there isn't much of it: just enough to keep
      • I forgot to mention that anal rapings don't actually occur regularly there, as guards will usually hear and stop it if the prisoner yells for help. It still does happen on occasion, and so do the inevitable lawsuits.

        There is, however, plenty of voluntary homosexual activity there, especially between cellmates.
      • Absolutely nothing (not even the death penalty) will deter some of them from trying to kill their fellow inmates.

        Bullshit. Properly applied, the death penalty has a 100% success rate.

  • I think prisoners are entitled to all career advancement options availible. FPS to improve aim, gyms to strengthen the body, and cable TV to find new things to get pissed about.

    Its understandable that we have to clothe, feed and give medical care to inmates, but I fail to see where entertainment comes in. I mean when you were a kid and screwed up the first thing your parents did was ban TV, videogames, etc. Can grown up criminals not handle this level of deprivation?

  • You mean these games are violent? (Score:5, Funny)

    by MobyDisk ( 75490 ) on Thursday December 02, 2004 @03:41PM (#10978058) Homepage
    "We didn't closely review these," Dave Dormire, superintendent of the Jefferson City Correctional Center, told The Kansas City Star. "We were told these games had more like cartoon violence."
    How close do you need to look?

    Game Name: "Hitman: Contracts"
    ESRB Rating: Mature (17+) for Blood and Gore, Intense Violence, Strong Language, Strong Sexual Content, Use of Drugs
    Sounds coming from prison: "That !@#* warden Dormire is gonna get !$*#$!"

    Also note that the ESRB [esrb.org] does explicitly label Cartoon Violence as opposed to Violence.

    I am amazed at how warning labels are ignored, even when they are simple and relevant! I bet I could put a label on something that says using it will kill you, and people would still buy it... Oh wait, they call that Tobacco!

  • I need to get me into prison! I just have to make sure i don't stab out anyone's face with a sword so I can play me some RPGz. Or some such. Working as a full time software engineer doesn't leave much gaming time anymore :(

  • Nerds Aren't Violent (Score:3, Funny)

    by Chi Hsuan Men ( 767453 ) on Thursday December 02, 2004 @03:48PM (#10978151) Homepage
    > Jacqueline Helfgott said: "They're not afraid to engage in violence, unlike the nerd sitting in front of his computer."

    Funny, because I'm a nerd, and I have sudden urge to bitchslap someone.

  • OMG (Score:1)

    by Glog ( 303500 )
    OMG, the most violent criminals will no longer have access to the most violent games? Doh, now they'll just have to go back to killing *real* people... It's in the brain and the character, stupid... a game does not a criminal make, just as a criminal is not going to reform all of sudden if you let them play "Shangri-La: Adventures with Jesus 3"!
  • Science fiction and sports games were not pulled as part of the sweep, so more nerdy prisoners will not be affected by the changes."

    So now we have the more violent criminals sitting around with nothing to do, while the geeky ones still get to enjoy their video games. Yeah, I'm sure nothing bad could possibly arise from that situation.

  • Is it just me... (Score:2, Insightful)

    by MisterMoney ( 615506 )
    ...or does it seem a little strange that we allow PRISONERS to play video games? Aren't they supposed to be in there to be punished?

    • No, they're in there to be kept out of society.

      Some very general background: the penal system used to consist of actual punishments; flogging, beating, confiscation of property, execution, forced-reparations, banishment, and so on.

      England would use jails to hold prisioners waiting for deportation to Austrailia, or the New World, or whatever, and eventually, they decided to just let people rot in jail.

  • Dammit. (Score:2, Funny)

    by ayersrj ( 701333 )
    Looks like Thug Life over in Block C is going to have his Atari 2600 and Keystone Kapers confiscated.
  • ... Honestly, is there ANY part of this article that does not cause a self-inflicted how-could-they-be-this-stupid beating of head against a wall?

    We've got: giving prisoners video games, being unaware the content of said games, taking games with violent content from prisoners, insulting geeks for no reason, calling sports games "geeky" games. Anything else?

    *commences with the beating of head against wall*
  • Any of you read the article?

    The games were paid for from inmates' purchases -- mostly of snacks -- at the prison canteen. The canteen generates up to $20,000 monthly and a committee of corrections officials, prison staffers and several inmates decides how to spend it.

    Much of the cash is used for weightlifting and exercise equipment. Video games are a new purchase in Jefferson City; prison officials say other facilities have done the same, though it doesn't appear to be the norm.

    "It has a good effect

  • But I get the feeling much of the trash talk that usually takes place within video gaming isn't going on there. Take Madden 05 for instance More Geeky Inmate: Ha ha Farve just made you his bitch Large Black Inmate: Right after this game I'm gonna tatoo tits on your back and really make you my bitch!

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