Prison Bans D&D For Mimicking Gang Structure

Trepidity writes "In a case that has been winding its way through the courts for a while now, a Wisconsin prison banned inmates from playing Dungeons & Dragons, using the justification that 'one player is denoted the Dungeon Master... [who] is tasked with giving directions to other players... [which] mimics the organization of a gang.' The prison also cited some sparse evidence that a handful of non-inmate D&D players once committed some crimes that allegedly were related to their D&D playing. On Monday the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the regulation (PDF) against challenges from inmates. The court appeared skeptical of the ban, sarcastically referring to it as the 'war on D&D,' but upheld it nonetheless as having a 'rational basis.' Law professor Ilya Somin suggests that the court may have had no choice, given how deferential rational-basis review usually is."

Comments

Is it just D&D ?

[VShael]

What if they played any other sort of RPG?

Or is the law so nutty that they'll ban boardgames like Clue because it features a murder? Or Colditz, because it features escaping from a prison?

Re:Is it just D&D ?

[HungryHobo]

I think this comes under socialising and if you don't let people people socialise to a minimum extent it can screw up their minds.
In other words if you lock someone up in a room with nothing but a pile of food,books and some weights equipment for a few years they probably come out more than somewhat messed up in the head.

It occurs to me that it's like someone found that making their child go sit in the corner alone for 10 minutes when they were somewhat bad was a decent punishment and then tried to just sort of scale up the time and how far away the corner was for more serious offences and didn't consider that some things don't scale well...

Re:Is it just D&D ?

[Anonymous Coward]

I did a couple year stint for a drug crime and we played D&D all the time. We made different sided dice out of paper and cardboard. The guards only issue was when we made maps. They would often take our maps and make sure they weren't of the facility I was in. The dice were another issue as they were officially contraband, and when some guards were on duty we couldn't play.

D&D was an awesome time waster and great fantasy get away.

Re:Is it just D&D ?

[martyros]

I think prison is bad enough; and if you make it really terrible, then you get screwed up people coming out the other end.

Also, it may be that you actually get a lot of enjoyment and refreshment out of "educational reading", and don't particularly enjoy football. But not everyone is of that bent: Imagine being sent to a prison where you *weren't* allowed educational reading, but *only* playing football. A little bit of "release" can change an unpleasant situation from unbearable to bearable.

Disclaimer: I'm certainly no expert, but I have visited a prison at least once. :-)

Re:Is it just D&D ?

[Opportunist]

Sorry to break it to you, but no. Nobody breaking the law thinks of the consequences.

Take bank robberies. About 90% of the culprits are caught within the first 48 hours. Another 9% within two weeks. This is basically common knowledge, at least around here. Yet still people go and rob banks. Few of them with any sensible preparations. It's a spur of the moment thing, often and usually based on desperation. You can see that in the statistics because the cases get more and more just before Christmas and usually the annual peak is in the week before.

Do you think anyone of them thought about the 10 years of prison waiting for him?

The repetition rate is stunningly low, that's true. Mostly because in prison they learn it's much easier (and possibly even more profitable) to rob gas stations and 7/11s.

Work Programs

[Nerdfest]

Well, I hope these people don't participate in any work training programs. Those are also structured disturbing like gangs, with a leader and people specializing in different things. I think some people have also committed crimes while at work.