Court Says Playing Dungeons & Dragons In Prisons Represents Gang Behavior
from the bloods,-crips-and-paladins dept
Slashdot points us to a somewhat odd lawsuit in which a court determined that the game Dungeons & Dragons could lead to gang activity, and thus could be banned in prisons.Basically, a guy who is serving a life sentence for murder, Kevin Singer, was apparently an avid D&D player as well, and had a collection of D&D books and related paraphernalia. However, it was confiscated by the prison after another prisoner complained that Singer was building a "gang" around D&D.
...Waupun's long-serving Disruptive Group Coordinator, Captain Bruce Muraski, received an anonymous letter from an inmate. The letter expressed concern that Singer and three other inmates were forming a D&D gang and were trying to recruit others to join by passing around their D&D publications and touting the "rush" they got from playing the game. Muraski, Waupun's expert on gang activity, decided to heed the letter"s advice and "check into this gang before it gets out of hand."Singer and the other prisoners named in the letter filed a complaint about the confiscation, and then a lawsuit. Singer got numerous experts to explain that D&D is not related to gang activity. The court claims that some of those experts actually claimed otherwise, but the interpretation here is fuzzy. The court says that these experts disagreed with Singer's assertions because they claimed that D&D could keep people away from gang activity, and thus it's "connected" to gang activity. I can't see how this makes any sense at all. By that reasoning anything that someone does that keeps them away from joining a gang is automatically considered, itself, a gang activity. How does that make sense?
The explanation as to why D&D serves to create gang activity seems absolutely ridiculous:
Muraski elaborated that during D&D games, one player is denoted the "Dungeon Master." The Dungeon Master is tasked with giving directions to other players, which Muraski testified mimics the organization of a gang. At bottom, his testimony about this policy aim highlighted Waupun's worries about cooperative activity among inmates, particularly that carried out in an organized, hierarchical fashion. Muraski's second asserted governmental interest in the D&D ban was inmate rehabilitation. He testified that D&D can "foster an inmate's obsession with escaping from the real life, correctional environment, fostering hostility, violence and escape behavior," which in turn "can compromise not only the inmate's rehabilitation and effects of positive programming but also endanger the public and jeopardize the safety and security of the institution."Read that a couple times. The argument is basically that (1) any activity that involves a hierarchy mimics gang activity and thus can be barred and (2) anything that lets inmates have an imagination might hurt their chances at rehabilitation. The court seems to suggest that part of the problem is that Singer failed to directly answer specific questions or make the specific points he needed to in order to prevail -- which is entirely possible. However, it still seems like a silly result all around.
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Filed Under: dungeons and dragons, gangs, prison
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I'll Show Him
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One thing...
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Re: One thing...
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I .. . wow, how vague is that?
What about . . . being in a prison? You have a hierarchy of command, with the admins at the top, and guards near there, with prisoners at the bottom . . . it's very organized!
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Over and over again the sub-leaders of this massive organization gather together hovering over their computers using long distance communication to bark out orders and requirements which must be complied with or die. When will it end? Who will stop this horrible phenomenon of gang activity?
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So they'll be banning works of fiction from the prison library I presume?
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How does that make sense?
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Good GMs
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Um...
Prisons are used to keep some people away from gangs.
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Re: John GAcy
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Re: Re: One thing...
find a way to view documents on an Android smartphone...
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Re: I'll Show Him
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Am I the only one?
....that flashed back to A Clockwork Orange when they read that?
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Yet the populace is to believe that this is not gang behavior because it's their job eh?
If you go higher up the heirachy, the same plays true. Looks just like gang behavior. They got their special markings that give them identification within their groups that mostly don't mean much to those outside the group.
So where does this gang mentality end? I can not see that allowing prisoner to game play, leads to greater crime. I'd rather seeing them game play than participating in jail breaking. Which to you seems like the lessor threat?
Or perhaps we ought to let them go back to exercising in the gyms? After all, where could that lead? (sarcasm mode on)
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Re: I'll Show Him
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Am I the only one?
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to read comments
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Re: to read comments
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Re: Re: Re: One thing...
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Contradiction
Ms. Palins website and radio jocks did NOT cause or add to the probability of the shooting?
Well, then how can rock lyrics or games do exactly that when similar activity doesn't ??
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Next up: Going to Church
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Also, all television, music and literature should be banned because people use them to excape from real life.
Abolutely absurd.
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Actually, the DM doesn't give directions to the other players, the DM outlines scenarios of the story. The players then tell the DM what they do in each situation, to which the DM tells them the consequences of their actions and progresses the story.
Semantics maybe, but still quite a difference.
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Isn't the prison itself hierarchical?
Sounds like maybe the prison needs to become an autonomous collective.
HM
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Re: Good GMs
HM
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Give me a f'n break!
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Re: Next up: Going to Church
HM
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Re: Give me a f'n break!
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Heh
The D&D prejudice in prisons is nothing new really. I wish I could remember where I first heard it, but the game was originally discouraged in some prisons because of the dice.
Leads to gamblin', you know.
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Re: Isn't the prison itself hierarchical?
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Hide the chess sets!
Holy crap - a "gang" of white pieces vs. a gang of black pieces - it's racial and gang related and certainly won't help with your rehabilitation!
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"Why would I do what Smitty says, he killed my level 3 fighter with a poison trap, and didn't give me a saving throw!"
Any guesses on what I do with my Saturday nights? :)
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Re:
Down the room and to the right is all of the party's equipment, unfortunately, its guarded by the ruler of the prison AKA warden, but thats ok, because the thief smuggled in (dont ask how) a wand of fire balls, giving just enough fire power to grab the equipment and bust out.
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That reminds me of the constitutional right of the Federal government to regulate interstate commerce. They've expanded it to the point they're making the claim that an individual declining to purchase something 'affects' interstate commerce, and hence the federal government can forbid you from not buying something.
(See the recent healthcare bill. It's unlikely that provision will stand the constitutional challenge, but there are actually politicians making the above argument.)
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Someone's character got killed.
I wonder if people go to prison to join the campaign? Do they have a Jailcon once a year that was canceled too?
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Weird correlation..
Maybe theyre afraid that gang bangers will be smarter than the intel community...
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D&D Ruling does not extend to other RPG's!
"However, we are not convinced that the ban is as unyieldingly
categorical as Singer makes it out to be. He
argues that the ban precludes him from playing D&D and
therefore he has no alternative means to play D&D. That
may be true, but, as the district court pointed out in
discounting this circular argument, Singer still has access
to other allowable games, reading material, and leisure
activities."
If I were him, I would start playing Runequest, Rolemaster, Palladium, Warhammer FRPG, White Wolf and other RPGS!!!!
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Old News
http://www.examiner.com/rpg-in-national/geeks-are-sexy-correction-on-d-d-prison-controversy
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Re: Re: Re: Re: One thing...
Can't do that on a phone. It only says I need flash for some reason...
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Sure there is the Catholic gang, the Methodist Gang, the tribes of Israel...
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Here Comes Da Gang
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Re: Here Comes Da Gang
See? That's why private ownership of weapons, especially guns, should be outlawed. People just get themselves killed.
/s
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You cant stop the imagination!
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Re: Give me a f'n break!
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give it up
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