A man serving life in prison for first-degree intentional homicide lost his legal battle Monday to play Dungeons & Dragons behind bars.
Kevin T. Singer filed a federal lawsuit against officials at Wisconsin's Waupun prison, arguing that a policy banning all Dungeons & Dragons material violated his free speech and due process rights. Singer was sentenced to life in prison in 2002 after being found guilty of first-degree intentional homicide in bludgeoning his sister's boyfriend to death with a sledgehammer.
According to the ruling, Singer (33), was a devoted gamer since childhood. Prison officials banned gaming material in 2004 after an inmate sent an anonymous letter expressing concern about Singer and three other inmates forming a "gang" focused around playing the game.
Seriously? A gang? A prisoner sent an anonymous letter about concerns over a gang forming in prison? Does anyone else find that ludicrous?
After the ban went into effect, prison officials confiscated all gaming material in Singer's cell, as well as a 96-page adventure. Singer was told by prison officials that he could not keep the materials because Dungeons & Dragons:
"…promotes fantasy role playing, competitive hostility, violence, addictive escape behaviors, and possible gambling."
This issue isn't new. Each state has its own regulations for what is and isn't okay to send a prisoner, and sometimes it seems the rules are enforced at a whim. For example, a copy of Dungeon magazine was sent back to Paizo Publishing because the product contained maps.
In the July 2007 issue of Dragon Magazine, then Editor-in-Chief Erik Mona, had this to say about prisoners who game:
"We get letters asking for campaign advice, letters apologizing for implicating D&D in crimes committed in the 80s at the height of the gaming scare, and letters with questions, criticisms, and praise of the latest issue-or sometimes an issue from months or even years ago. Almost all of the friendly, hand-written letters praise the positive impact DUNGEONS & DRAGONS has made on their lives. These men are extremely bored, and D&D offers them a brief respite from their dull punishment."
The reaction to Dragon Magazine embracing gamer-prisoners was extreme. Paizo's message boards and letter columns declared that prisoners shouldn't have access to games…or anything fun at all. The 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals agreed with that sentiment, stating that the prison's policy was reasonable and did not violate Singer's rights:
"After all, punishment is a fundamental aspect of imprisonment, and prisons may choose to punish inmates by preventing them from participating in some of their favorite recreations."
The question here is the purpose of incarceration. If you feel the sole purpose of the prison system is to punish people without any hope of rehabilitation, then you probably agree with the court's ruling. The court seems to feel that you should have no escape in prison, not even a mental escape. The problem is that prisoners do not live in a vacuum, and their punishment is felt by their family, friends, and children. This hardnosed approach is corrosive to society – unless we're about to start mass executing these prisoners, we have to deal with their hearts and minds. Even if they're condemned to life in prison.
On the other hand, if you feel prison should not only separate prisoners from society but also help rehabilitate them so that they can be reintegrated, the ruling is misguided. Mona guessed that there were thousands, if not tens of thousands, of prisoners playing Dungeons & Dragons. For a group with a lot of time on its hands, role-playing games can be a healthy outlet. Gaming brings a host of useful skills to the table, including math and language.
I think Mona put it best:
"The reaction struck me as utterly without compassion, and I think part of my disconnect has to do with all the prison mail When all you know about prison comes from dirty jokes and Oz, it's easy to villify prisoners as a homogenous mass of evil, but getting all these letters—reading their honest pleas, their thanks for a hobby we all share and love—going through that experience has personalized the issue for me.
I agree. What do you think?
Comments
As a regular poster on the Paizo message board I would say that the reaction to this issue has been mixed. There is not a general consensus that prisioners should not have "anything fun at all," in fact if anything that is the minority opinion. In Mr. Singer's case however, he is sentenced to life in prison, presumably without parole, for his crime. Therefore reformation and rehabilitation would take a back seat to punitive purposes in his particular case.
While I feel for Mr. Singer as a fellow gamer, I also feel for the family of his victim. I don't believe that there should be an outright ban on RPGs in prison, but I do think that some people can take it to extremes and prison officials have judgement calls to make. In this case it appears that the prison officials decided that a general ban would present less of a problem legally then a decision on a case by case basis, and the appeals court agreed. Please don't present gamers as one sided bigots. That is not the case.
Why not ban all other gaming systems while we're at it.
As another poster on the Paizo board, I have to say the reaction is definitely mixed, as I've been posting there and elsewhere and I'm on the same side as Mona and yourself. Prisoners need to be rehabilitated, and allowing them a harmless passtime is compassion if nothing else.
Hi David,
To clarify the segment characterizing the Paizo boards at the time, here's the full quote:
"The readers went ballistic. Paizo's message boards and letter columns overflowed with angry readers who just couldn't understand how Johnny could care at all about the rights of criminals, angrily declaring that prisoners shouldn't have access to games or anything fun at all."
However, it was never my intent to present gamers as one-sided bigots. I think there are definitely valid points on both sides.
To further clarify my own problem with the ruling:
It's specifically with the court's characterization that role-playing promotes "competitive hostility, violence, addictive escape behaviors, and possibly gambling." That's ridiculous.
I also take issue with the implication that gaming together is somehow a "gang" activity. This is also not just ridiculous, it's so absurd an argument (that gaming is more likely to start a gang in prison that any other activity) that, coupled with the characterization of gaming, it's an insult to all the positive work gaming has done personally and professionally.
I think this article misrepresents the case against D&D here. Based on my reading of the opinion, the court ruled in favour of the prison, not because it thought D&D had any real chance of causing a gang or making prisoners want to escape (the opinion of the judge seemed fairly positive on many aspects of the game in regards to prisoners, based on my reading of it) But that the law maintains that the Prison officials have control over the security of their prison, and if they have a reasonable belief that something is a security concern, they can ban that as long as there are other reasonable forms of expression that can be substituted.
It didn't say that there was no case against this for D&D (I believe there is), but the evidence/affidavits and arguments brought by the Prisoner did not address this question reasonably, so the Prison won.
And even though I feel bad for the prisoner (and think the prison's fears are unreasonable) based on the law, I think the court made the right ca
I can care less about what kind of interpretation the court has on what D&D is or isn't.
I would agree with the opinion that if the prisoner was in prison for a lesser crime and has a chance of being paroled, he should have more freedoms; i.e. get to play D&D. But lifers? Lifers who brutally murdered people? Whatever. Let them suffer and rot in hell. I know that if I was part of the victim's family, I'd be outraged if prisoners such as these have any kind of peace and contentment after taking my loved one away.
I used to work in a prison, and I am a pretty conservative person on prisoner rights. I once found homemade gaming materials on a cell search. I can tell you that I identified them for what they were, and allowed the inmate to keep the material. "Lifers" more than others are the ones that do need that little bit of mental escape. The lifers are the ones that, after a time, realize they are never getting out. They are the ones that realize that, like it or not, they are now home. Most often, the lifers are the ones that give the corrections officers the least troubles. They don't want a lot of hassles. They are the ones that would rather the young bucks calm down. In short, I really see no reason to not allow the games in prison. I had more problems with keeping inmates from getting out of hand with cards & dominoes. Those gamers NEVER gave me any problems.
Thanks for that perspective, Dale. I'm hardly an expert on prison psychology, but I know that role-playing was developmentally important for me. As many others have said, gaming is a mental escape, and if it keeps prisoners compliant then I would think most wardens wouldn't mind.
But this goes back to whether the purpose of prison is to keep prisoners away from society (and thus compliant) or punish them (and thus miserable). There are certainly arguments for both sides.
So apparently it's okay for violent ethnic racists to form gangs and rape the others that cannot defend themselves, but it's not okay for gamers to get together to play some harmless indoor game to help pass the time. I get it now!
I might add that if they are going to use the "gang" excuse, then maybe they should do something about the existing dangerous gang structures that already exist and not pick on a few gamers.
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