This is not a clear cut issue. Sure, like someone pointed out earlier, RPGs could be a great tool to help some prisoners. Non-violent or white-collar offenders, playing under supervised conditions, i.e. a DM that doesn't let them get away with murder. In other words no evil campaigns allowed unless there are realistic consequences for a PC's evil actions.
Other prisoners should not have RPGs. For one of two reasons. Either they can't handle it psychologically or they don't deserve the enjoyment that RPGs bring.
Prisoners who already are mentally unstable may benefit from certain structured role-playing as above. But never should anyone just be given books and dice and allowed to game on their own. Why? Because prison isn't supposed to be fun.
If you are in prison for rape, murder or some other violent or heinous crime, then you should not have fun. In my opinion, such a person deserves a bullet in the back of the head or a long walk and a short drop.
People seem to forget the victim. If your wife was raped and murdered, does the prisoner deserve to sit in his cell with his buddies rolling dice and having a good time?
No. He deserves no such enjoyment. There should be no cable TV. No weights. No gaming. Hell, they should never be let out of their 10X10 cell for the entire length of their sentence. They should be given nothing to do but stare at the bare concrete. They should have nothing to look forward to but the slop the guard brings them to eat. They should have nothing to do but sit and think about the awfulness of what they have done. Punishment must by its very nature be cruel or it is no longer punishment.
The problem with crime in our society is that there is no true punishment anymore. Prison is a joke. Prisoners enjoy all the freedoms of a civilian life except for the ability to come and go as they like. No wonder virtually every ex-con is a repeat offender. The opportunity cost to commit a crime is so low. A felon has nothing really to lose from committing a crime and potentially gets a lot of benefit from it.
Crime is neither funny nor glamourous. It is something that hurts real people. People whose lives are often shattered, never to be rebuilt again. Loved ones lost, financial ruin, and many years of pain and suffering are just some of the results.
Frankly the responses of some of you are utterly contemptible and disgusting. There are the jokers who think its funny. And the misguided political crusadors who think that these scum of the earth deserve this or have a right to that, etc.
You think its funny, for example, that some guy who kidnapped and murdered someone's little boy should get his D&D books in prison? Such a person deserves nothing but a life of pain and torment for their crime. If they even deserve to live at all. They certainly don't deserve D&D books.
I'm amazed that this thread hasn't been shut down.
And on a side note don't even kid yourself that prisoners are good customers. An acquaintance of mine knew a felon who gamed. All his gaming material was stolen from other people, outrighted shoplifted, or purchased with cash gained from selling stolen goods.
Last I heard he was back in prison for identity theft. To him its a game. To some of you its a joke. But to the person whose life was brought to financial ruin and almost destroyed, its a nightmare they cannot wake from.
