No Grand Theft Auto In Prison?

Thanks to Frictionless Insight for pointing to an Australian article discussing a judge's suggestion that Grand Theft Auto-style games not be available in prison. According to the report, "Bradley Scott McConkey... led police on a 200km car chase at speeds of up to 180 kilometres per hour, as well as stealing cars at knifepoint and committing armed robbery on two businesses", and additionally, "...a psychologist's report said McConkey had played Playstation's Grand Theft Auto during a previous jail term." Due to the similarity of the games and the crime, the judge suggested "...the appropriateness of Grand Theft Auto-style games in a prison environment was questionable", since it "provides opportunities for rehearsing their destructive activities."

Comments

Video Games in Prison?

[saden1]

Oh my, my tax dollars are paying for that now? I want a Console for x-mass, send me one Uncle Sam!

Re:Video Games in Prison?

[Babbster]

you know, prisoners shouldn't lose their human rights

Actually, going to prison means at its base that you DO lose human rights, though not quite all of them. Furthermore, depending on what kind of prison you're in, there are many things that you cannot own and possess inside the place - were owning and possessing property in one's cell a right in prison, I expect there would be a lot of Ginsu products sold there. I suppose it's possible that there are prisons where you can own and possess your television in prison, but it's certainly not a standard and would in most states be subject to the warden/superintendant's decision.

Uh, video games in prison?

[adamjaskie]

Why is my money paying for this? They shouldnt have tetris, let alone GTA. Hell, I dont have a playstation 2, why should a bank robber in jail?

Re:Uh, video games in prison?

[Babbster]

The likelihood is that prisons with video games have one or two consoles in a rec room serving hundreds of prisoners. Considering how many prisoners can be entertained at a time (watching and playing), a video game console would actually be a relatively economical diversion. Also, unless you're one of those who truly believe that video games make people do things they wouldn't ordinarily do (like stealing cars and beating people), they could also be a good way to bleed off a bit of the aggression that many prisoners will inevitably feel.

Finally, I would note that, at least for me, I'm far more concerned about how much money we spend putting non-violent offenders in prison for using drugs. They could afford nice setups with 10 or more computers/consoles in every prison if we could trim those numbers down. A Playstation 2 or three is hardly a drop in the prison bucket.

Re:Uh, video games in prison?

[Anonymous Coward]

for gods sake, its prison; you arent supposed to relax and have fun. its for punishment.

Generally, the primary purpose of prison is not punishment, it is to rehabilitate the prisoners so they can rejoin society. Many people complain that prisoners get free education, but maybe if they gain some useful skills they won't be commiting crimes when they are released. Being in shape will be useful for many jobs. Relaxation will help keep them sane, and prevent rage from building up, which is always useful.

So a more useful question would be whether video games are useful for rehabilitation. Maybe some games are, but probably not GTA.

Re:Uh, video games in prison?

[spencerogden]

I'm not one of theose people who think that video games make "do things". But I do think that providing entertainment to inmates is dumb. If you want entertainment, at least make it valuable, read a book or something. Like the origional poster said, I don't even own a playstation. I fail to see what benefit the availability of video games has towards rehabilitation.

Re:Uh, video games in prison?

[feidaykin]

I think this would be a small consolation to the people that are wrongfully imprisoned. But that doesn't happen here in the US, does it?

Re:Uh, video games in prison?

[La Temperanza]

This just in: A gruesome murder was committed in which a family of four was trapped inside their house for two weeks by an insane killer before starving to death.

The flamboyant perpetrator, billing himself "The Playa", somehow removed all the windows and doors, replaced the flooring with concrete, and destroyed all furniture including the toilet and refrigirator while the family was inside. "There was a noise, it sounded kinda like 'Paused, and everything changed," describes the half-eaten diary of Mya Sim, twelve years old.

Just as mysteriously, none of the neighbors noticed the family's plight until it was far too late, despite the house's drastically altered appearance. The police were finally tipped off by someone with the alias of "Game Over", thought to be a rival underground figure.

Ok.... what?!?!

[hawkbug]

Maybe I'm ignorant here, but I'm not surprised by the fact that they can't play GTA in prison... I'm surprised by the fact they have video games at ALL in prison. This is news to me. Maybe I should go rob somebody so I can get free food and housing, and now PS2 games in the slammer...

Re:Ok.... what?!?!

[isorox]

For us slashdotters with computers, homes, internet, and probably a lot more, prison still is a deterrent, but when I look at a guy I saw at the Oxford Circus Underground station a couple of weeks ago, white as a sheet, thin as a rake, looked really bad (I gave him all the change in my pocket, if I went that way frequently I'd be taking him sandwiches), and I wonder why the system fails. If you're out on the streets, genuinely starving, just throw a brick through a window and confess police station, at the very least you get a bed for the night.

Re:Ok.... what?!?!

[Dot.Com.CEO]

It truly annoys me that there are still people who do not know what prison is for, yet they choose to write self-righteous replies pointing out wrong facts. I'll give you a hint: it's called a corrective facility for a reason. The fact is that through our education and social memes we have gotten to believe that prison is for punishment. It is not, and we need to be categorical about this. The fact that people still believe that you are being punished while in prison, let alone that you are in prison so you cannot do more harm is indicative of the ignorance of basic human rights that were that were the object of much fighting in 18th Century France and America.

Even more indicative of especially the American public's specific fascination with the equation "prison=punishment" is that you actually think it is the death penalty is a conversation topic when all of the developed world has understood that when the establishment chooses to murder one of its subjects, the battle is lost. Also, as far as I know, federal prisoners automatically lose their right to vote and to be elected. In many western democracies, taking away these rights is reserved for only of the worst of criminals and, specifically, ones convicted of high treason or political crimes.

Just Change It

[cybermage]

Don't take GTA away from them, just give them a version where they get gunned down in a hail of bullets within seconds of commiting a crime.

A little conditioning goes a long way.

Why is this a problem?

[Blitter]

You're dealing with an adult who has demonstrated that they are irresponsible and a danger to society, not a minor who has avoided screwing up in real life even though he loves playing GTA. You're also dealing with a guy who is in prison: he doesn't get the bennies the good guys do. This is hardly a case of The Man being scared that video games will create monsters. The judge realized that with normal people that isn't going to happen, but with people who have demonstrated they can't manage their behavior and steal cars at knifepoint and lead police on high speed chases, it's a valid concern.

Holy shit.

[Lukey Boy]

The bigger issue is... I can play video games in prison? What the hell's with that?

I play quake to relieve my anger and kill people.

[seann]

works good for anger management.

Six years, eight months?

[Babbster]

McConkey pleaded guilty in August to seven charges including assault with intent to rob, aggravated armed robbery and stealing a car...He was sentenced to a total of six years and eight months in jail.

Is anyone else more concerned that Australia can't give a tougher sentence to people who commit violent crimes (armed robbery)? Admittedly, I don't know much about the Australian justice system. Do they actually put people away for the entirety of their sentence? If so then the sentence isn't TOO bad (seems like it could still be longer), but in America the above sentence would end up being under three years if the prisoner met enough parole conditions...

Re:Six years, eight months?

[jquirke]

Australian sentences generally seem to be fairly short, from what I've seen (in the state of Victoria).

For example, it seems the public is content with a violent murderer going away for 15-20 years, whereas in the US you'd probably want life, or death.

I was actually surprised at this guy for getting almost 7 years - although this is another state (WA) so I'm not too familiar with their sentencing - it will obviously differ state to state as it does in the US.

Re:Six years, eight months?

[@madeus]

Australian sentencing seems to be quite leniant by US standards. It seems to me to be very similar to the UK. In the UK (and I suspect in Australia too) there is much pressure on over crowed prisions.

Interestingly enough, this was a problem in the US when GWB came to power, so, duh, he though, we need to build a lot more prisions (a very GWB solution).

I'm not a fan of the US Justice System (it /still/ exececutes people for a start, which is entirely despicable in my book, and I find it US police are excessively authoritarian, though I do like the idea of elected high ranking police officals) but quite frankly building more prison space was a simple, logical idea. It worked too! - Crime was brought down. He was 100% spot on in building more prisons.

It's not because prison re-habilitates people that 'more prisons' work (most people go on to reoffend), and it's not that it's a deterrent (statistically, term lengths have very little impact because criminals don't expect to get caught). it's just that so crime is commited by the same group of poeple. If you keep them (a tiny minority) locked up, then they are not going around commiting crimes, so the crime rate falls. It's really that simple.

Of course in the long term you need improved education and social services too, so you can socially engineer the populace so they are less included to mug/rape/murder each other, but you need to 'keep the loonies of the grass' in the mean time - you can't have them running around in the street commiting drive bys and GTA.

IMO, this is what we need to do in the UK, more prisions and less 'lighter sentences beacause the prisons are overcrowed!'. We also badly need a 3 strikes and your out rule IMO. I am fed up with serial car jackers, burgalers and murders who get light sentences (out after 8 years for rape and murder, for example), only to re-offend. I mean, FFS, if the have been arrested for burglary/assault/car theft 10 times already what the fuck are they doing out of jail already?

Take the case of Tony Martin, who was sentanced to jail for life for shooting dead a burglar on his own land (there were two burglars who had come to steal from him, Tony Martin was alone in a remote house in the country). Tony Martin's sentance was reduced to 5 years on appeal (though he was refused early release), but most interesting point about the whole affair was:

The burgler who died had already been in court 28 times for crimes including theft, fraud, offences against property and public disorder. His accomplice was even worse and had 34 criminal convictions for the same types of offences!

There is no way either of these two should have been walking around the streets, it's just incompotence on the part of our justice system. The judges responsible *should* have been named and shamed and forced to resign. They are clearly not fit to serve. In this respect, the US legal system certainly works better than ours because sentancing is harsher in cases like this.

Oh, and get this - the wounded buglar (33 year old Brendon Fearon) is suing Tony Martin for 'loss of earnings', despite currently being in jail on an 18 month sentance for dealing heroin. The fact that he even has a chance of winning should disturb us all...

The funny thing is, the whole business of judges handing down light sentences so as not to further over crowd prisions really pisses the police in the UK off as well, they know that if they arrest someone and hand the case over to the CPS (Criminal Prosecution Service) to handle, they are easily back on the streets and commit crimes again because the judge will invariably go lightly on them and the whole exercise will just end up being a complete waste of police and CPS time as well of course of money.

The problem with Australians is...

[psxndc]

The problem with Australians is they are too tough. The judge was probably like "Only seven counts? Pansy. Six years!"

This is a nation founded as a prison colony. They think Rugby isn't rough enough so they made up Australian Rugby. They are psychos down there. Have you ever tried drinking with an Australian?? They have a death wish!

I don't question anything the Australians have done, except maybe using PAL instead of NTSC. I mean these are the people that "Hey, Paul Hogan and Yahoo Serious: Get out!" Sound like a bright and psychotic bunch those Aussies

psxndc

Rehearsal for real life crimes?

[Violet Null]

Sure, I guess GTA can be used as a rehearsal for real life crimes, as long as those real life crimes assume the following facts apply in the real world...

• Police are willing to overlook any crime -- even the slaughter of dozens of policeman -- with a few bribes. Or, even easier, by having your car spray painted another color.
• A car can undergo any trauma -- even falling from the roof of a building or cliff or ramming another car at full speed -- and still provide complete protection and allow at least seven seconds getaway before it blows up.
• High powered weapons can be found in obscure corners.
• You never run out of gas.
• Car doors are hardly ever locked.
• You can carjack any car you want simply by stepping in front of it, waiting for it to stop (which it will always do), and then removing the driver from the car, which is never resisted.
• Cops don't care if you flagrantly violate traffic rules.
• If, somehow, you die or get arrested, you only lose a little amount of money, and your weapons.

Yep, assume all that, and it is a highly useful simulation.

I remember these!

[Sevn]

Bradley Scott McConkey led police on a 200km car chase at speeds of up to 180 kilometres per hour, as well as stealing cars at knifepoint and committing armed robbery on two businesses. If he spent a total of 15 minutes stealing cars at knifepoint, and commiting armed robbery while maintaining a total average speed of 155kph when he was driving, how big is his butthole now?

Lets take away paper and pens too!

[PerpetualMotion]

And books....you can't forget the books. We wouldn't want someone reading some murder mystery while in for a dime on manslaughter. Why don't we just cage them up in bamboo cells, call them animals, and set them all loose in Australia after they complete their term. GTA is whats happening in the real world, and if you keep your inmates secluded and sheltered from real life not only do you run the risk of culture shock when they get out, you make them less efficent in society. If you want to ban someone from playing GTA even after they run out their term, well, I suppose the ACLU would have something to say.

Changes needed

[Anonymous Coward]

They let inmates play video games, lift weights etc etc to keep them from rioting and raping each other. The same people whining about all these perks are the same people who would raise hell if any more money went into fixing the prison system; making them secure institutions that are harsh yet humane instead of a candyland for gangs.

In the words of Robin Williams.....

[shadowcabbit]

"Fucking duh!"
-- (from the 2002 Live album)

The problem is not that it's a video game...

[leonbrooks]

...the problem is that violent crime is a successful option in the game. It's teaching - reinforcing gently but over and over and over again - that "violent crime can get you stuff".

When David Birnie, serial killer along with his wife Catherine, was given a computer in prison to write up his life story as a warning to others, he promptly began turning out sick porn which bore an uncanny resemblance to the perversions and murders he and his wife had actually committed. It's not the computer's fault, but the computer certainly helped to propagate Birnie's lethal sickness rather than provide a catharsis or a useful warning. Nobody will be surprised that his computer was taken away again.

Given the proportion of inmates service time for violence and/or stealing, a game like GTA could most moderately be described as a bloody stupid choice for a prison. The console is not really a problem, although you could argue with some justification that part of the intent of imprisoning someone is to make the consequences of their crime unattractive to them and that the console is frustrating that intent. But given that the US Army is using first-person role-playing games as part of their troop training (and as a recruiting tool), it seems amazingly stupid to allow anything like GTA there. Any violent or destructive game hardly furthers any of the purposes of a prison, but the gobbledok who let GTA in needs his head read.

BTW, posting this from Western Australia.

Beggars (OT)

[@madeus]

This is off topic but as a Londoner I feel strongly about it (and for the record, I don't think any adult in jail should have access to a games console unless they are, for example, in a minimum security facility, in which case it's not really relevent if they have access to violent games or not, because volient criminals and those likely to re-offend should not be in minium security jails (IMO)).

But I digress. On beggers...

You same the very same people year after year at places like Oxford Circus, going their way down the tube asking for money and stinking up the carrage and pestering people for money.

I keep running into these fuckers, they are quite happy to pick fights and shout out 'Cunt!' and 'Motherfucker!' at members of the public just because they don't hand over cash to them. I'm fed up with it and would like to see the lot of them doing hard labour, jail or the army. They are NOT simply nice people on the inside. They are NOT all down on their luck. Some of them (most of them, being relatively fit, young, 20-30 year olds) are violent, drug addicted, criminals who will quite happily rob you at knife point if they think they will get away with it. By these people a sandwich (suckered!) and they will very often *throw it at you!* and ask for money, not food (I've seen this happen more than once, and usually accompanied by swearing). Please, if you visit London, don't give money or food or ANY sympathy to these scum, some of us have to live with them. DO buy a copy of the Big Issue however - it provides gainful employment while rasing money for the homeless, it's quite respectable.

Some of these people are mentally ill and need to be cared for, most of the ones I see just need a swift kick up the arse to get in line with the rest of society and stop leeching of the state (to which we pay such high taxes in the UK), stinking up the city, putting off visitors and getting in the way (and being abusive to, and commiting crimes against) tax paying residents. I consider myself left wing, but I still strongly think people have a duty to the state.

There are LOTS of options in country like the UK, who's state employs more people in heath care and social services then any other government in Europe (dispite us not having the largest area, or the largest population), it even has more employees than any other *company* in Europe. Our state apparatus is a sociallist legacy, and very extensive.

Our homeless housing projects are by and large excellent. There are plenty of hostels in the UK, with beds that go empty every night. The waiting list is about 2 weeks (max) for a perminant place. There is no shorting of housing, but to see the same people, month after month, year after year, you wouldn't think it. A one bedroomed flat in London will easily set you back 1,500 USD a month, that's what people on the streets in London say they want, well no, tough shit, go and live somewhere else, they can get a job, work hard and come back in a few years and pay for one themselves - they have no right to expect the state to put them up for gratis in what is the 3rd most expensive city in the world.

If your living on the streets for years in a country like the UK (which, for those who don't know, has a huge excess of housing in the north). In many cities in Scotland the council *advertise* hosing vacancies ('Contact us, get council housing, no waiting list!') in reasonable areas. I had a friend, a young fit ~22 year old single white male with no dependants, who was employed and quite happily living at home apply to the council for housing (it's cheaper, he was curious to see if he could get anything), and got council housing within the *week*. He must have been the lowest priority canidate, and he still got something right away, he's know bought the house from the council because he liked it so much (and they have too many, so are trying to sell them off).

I bought a Scottish drunk in north London breakfast in a cafe and asked him how long he had been in London (I refused t

Re:Beggars (OT)

[isorox]

I live in Walthamstow, work in Shepherd's Bush, and I know what you mean. Its not confined to London though, Exeter's just the same, albeit on a smaller scale, Manchesters pretty much the same scale. Normally I ignore beggars - but this guy looked like he should have been in hospital, definatly didnt have the heart or energy to kick up a fuss. I didnt think to ask him why he wasnt getting help as I'd had a long day and it was 11PM.

This was down on the station platform though, Any idea why LUL staff hadnt moved him on?

I remember a time I was 2p short for a train ticket home at Manc. Oxford road once, couldnt find anything on the floor, but a station worker gave me the dosh.

As for 1000 per month for a 1 bedroom flat, tell me about it. I'm paying 410 a month for a 4m*4m room in a shared house (albeit with all utilities, sky, cable internet, councili tax etc paid for). Another 90pm for tube and nearly 30% tax and theres not much left.

I remember a story an old teacher once told me. He met a lad that had left school a few years earlier, joined the army. He had a drinking problem, got discharged, and ended up begging on the streets of manchester. Anyway, the teacher took him for a good meal and found out his life story. After the meal they parted ways, but the lad dropped dead a few hundered yards up the road. The only person at the funeral was my teacher.

I'm not laying blame on anyone, but somewhere something went wrong wtih this man. Sure he had plenty of chacnes to turn himself round, but you have to wonder why people dont. In many cases beggars are on better "wages" then me - even before taxes, but there are a few genuine cases there. Why arent they in hostels? Why arent they in glaswegian flats? Why are they rooting through bins outside macdonalds - not just in London but in Exeter? Solve the 10% of cases that are genuine, slap major dis-incentives on the rest, and hopefully begging will evaporate.