Court To Prisoner: No Xbox 360 For You

jonklinger writes "An Israeli Court rejected the appeal of a prisoner who requested to have an Playstation 3 or Xbox 360 because there is no possibility to remove the internet connectivity apparatus from the device without harming its functionality. Therefore, prisoners cannot engage in gaming and will have to result to other kinds of violence."

Comments

It is possible

[Avoiderman]

Old xbox360 - glue in ethernet port. People do still play these things entirely offline at home don't they?

Re:It is possible

[Dog-Cow]

Wow, you're lost. The article you linked to was about a U.S. court. This article is about an Israeli court.

Re:It is possible

[Kal Zekdor]

Obviously not the problem, but the Wifi would be.

• A - Older Xbox 360s did not have built-in wifi, you needed to purchase an attachable wifi adapter.
• B - Prisons have (unsecured) wifi?

Re:It is possible

[h4rr4r]

So open the joker up an desolder the antenna. I bet a business could make good money supplying modified for this sort of use Xboxes and updates via usb.

Re:It is possible

[antifoidulus]

Maybe not permanently, but it wouldn't be that hard for someone to visit the prison who has a smart phone with tethering or one of those pocket wi-fi dealies and create a wifi network temporarily so their compatriot can do whatever they need to do.

Re:It is possible

[Kal Zekdor]

Maybe not permanently, but it wouldn't be that hard for someone to visit the prison who has a smart phone with tethering or one of those pocket wi-fi dealies and create a wifi network temporarily so their compatriot can do whatever they need to do.

Ummm.... yes it would. It's a prison.

Not that I really think prisoners should be given video games, internet connectivity or no.

Re:It is possible

[Opportunist]

You think the US courts have a monopoly on stupidity?

Re:It is possible

[Opportunist]

Prisons... probably not. But you can't really tell the guy living next door to the prison that he can't have one.

Re:It is possible

[J'raxis]

Nope. But I don't think "[t]his is the same justice system" either, which was the specific assertion being refuted.

Re:It is possible

[Cramer]

I was thinking the same thing... remove the pigtails and solder over the connectors (short out the radio.) HOWEVER, the wifi gear would still be functional. Enterprising inmates *would* find a way to undo the simple short and re-enable the radio. The only sure way is to burn out the radio(s), AND the ethernet PHY. Doable, but tricky.

Re:It is possible

[BitZtream]

That next guy is several hundred meters away from anywhere that the prisoners are going to live, and they'll also be behind several rather thick concrete walls that aren't going to play so well with the signal.

In short, the prison grounds are too large for any sort of useful wifi connection from somewhere external.

Its not like the prison and the people around it share the same unfenced back yard. You can't get within a 100 yards of a prison at the closest.

Re:It is possible

[NFN_NLN]

So open the joker up an desolder the antenna. I bet a business could make good money supplying modified for this sort of use Xboxes and updates via usb.

Prisoners may not be smart but they do have a lot of time on their hands. These people make cross-bows out of paper, saliva and pencils so I'm fairly certain they could figure out how to resolder an antenna.

http://weburbanist.com/2009/09/10/insane-prisoner-inventions-24-diy-prison-tools-weapons/

Re:It is possible

[ganjadude]

or, put the xbox in an enclosure that only allows physical access to the power button, the sync controller button and the cd tray. That way the inmate has no physical access to the box itself. Than simply use the older 360s that do not have built in wifi, no problems.

Re:It is possible

[Your.Master]

That may be true wherever you live. Are you sure that applies in Israel?

(I honestly don't know, and the thought crossed my mind that there may be radius limits).

Re:It is possible

[elrous0]

Nope, better nuke it from space. Only way to be sure.

Re:English, motherfarker...!

[Samantha Wright]

I have some fun but irrelevant news for you: "an" is older than "a"; the word is ultimately cognate with "one". If you go back far enough, it's the only indefinite article used. Wikipedia also talks about an hilarious process called 'juncture loss'.

Re:English, motherfarker...!

[Anonymous Coward]

result

Can they get a pc with no networking?

[Joe_Dragon]

Can they get a pc with no networking?

Re:Can they get a pc with no networking?

[PhunkySchtuff]

Yes, of course they can. They (prisons) get custom built machines. A mate of mine worked on a project to supply just these machines to prisons. Among the other special requirements was a case made entirely of clear acrylic so there would be nowhere to hide contraband.

Re:Can they get a pc with no networking?

[DarwinSurvivor]

Done http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811148001

Re:Can they get a pc with no networking?

[Syberz]

Until asses ans stomachs are made of clear acrylic, there's always a place to hide contraband.

The real question is

[LWATCDR]

Is jonklinger stupid or has a really bad sense of humor...
"Therefore, prisoners cannot engage in gaming and will have to result to other kinds of violence."
That is just bad.....

Re:The real question is

[dougmc]

The "article" did appear to be a machine translation of the original Hebrew, so odd wording should not be unexpected.

Re:The real question is

[LWATCDR]

" will have to result to other kinds of violence"
Was no where to be fund in the translation I read. So it was added as editorial commentary or I just missed it. Thing is I went to the translated site and did a search for the word violence and didn't find it.

My guess is that it is just a flat out lie used as click bait.

Brick it!

[Picardo85]

You can always get it banned from PSN or Xbox-live too ... then that's that!

There is always a way

[Anonymous Coward]

You can simply fry the console's wifi or get a banned console, et voila! no online gaming

Besides... WHY would they give videogames to prisoners?? it's a jail for FSM's sake, not disneyland! it's not suppossed to be funny or anything.

Re:There is always a way

[SuricouRaven]

Because busy prisoners are peaceful prisoners. If they are gaming then they aren't planning riots, organising gangs or maintaining their drug-smuggling networks.

Re:There is always a way

[mjr167]

Then give them a useful task like building roads... Let them read a book or go to school. I don't have a PS3. Why should gang-banger joe in prison have better stuff than me?

Re:There is always a way

[Anonymous Coward]

Some people are more interested in rehabilitation than punishment.

Re:There is always a way

[Pieroxy]

Then give them a useful task like building roads... Let them read a book or go to school. I don't have a PS3. Why should gang-banger joe in prison have better stuff than me?

I'm sure that you don't have a PS3 because you put no value in owning one. You put much higher value in reading books for example.

So by your standard, playing a PS3 is less valuable than reading a book, and so they would have *less* value than you, not more.

Re:There is always a way

[Ravon Rodriguez]

And how exactly will turning the prison system into an adult daycare promote rehabilitation? IMO, this is why the number of repeat offenders is so high. Give them high school and college courses, or let them otherwise learn a useful life skill; do anything but make prison an extended vacation for them.

Re:There is always a way

[h4rr4r]

How do you plan to use that to fill up 100% of their time? Idle hands and all that jazz.

Harsher prisons only mean harsher people when they are finally let out.

Re:There is always a way

[91degrees]

Most likely in order to maintain order. Carrot and stick works better than just carrot. Be a good prisoner, and you get rewards. Misbehave, starts fights, and so on and the privileges get taken away. This should lead to more good prisoners and fewer fights.

And if prisoner shows that he can behave for small rewards then that suggests that maybe he can be rehabilitated.

Re:There is always a way

[rahvin112]

An adult daycare you can't leave, that locks you in a barred room for 12+ hours a day, that totally limits everyday activities, where gainful employment is either free or at vastly reduced wages (in the US typically $.70 cents an hour, where the prison vastly inflates the prices of items sold to the prisoners (are bar of soap can exceed $5 and a pack of cigarettes $10), where you are under threat of violence and where drug use is so high because there is nothing to do.

I'll never understand the American prison view that derives from Ben Franklin's writings that everyone should be in solitary confinement with nothing to do. Isn't it bad enough that you are locked in a place that you can't leave? Do you really need to throw in rape and abuse along with no entertainment?

Re:There is always a way

[Rinnon]

Then we should hook them all up to World of Warcraft then. Seems to do the trick for keeping people on the outside from fulfilling the obligations they otherwise would have upheld. I see no reason why it wouldn't work in Prisons. "Hey man, we're planning a riot for tonight, you in?" "Ahh... yeah thing is, tonight is Raid night, and I'm kinda the MT."

Re:There is always a way

[ganjadude]

in ny a bar of soap IS around 5 bucks, and a pack of smokes IS around 11 bucks!, damn inmates getting cheeper smokes than us!

Re:There is always a way

[izomiac]

IIRC, there's a prison in Tennessee that lets prisoners farm their own food. Farming is a useful skill, reduces the cost of imprisonment, exercises the prisoners, teaches responsibility, and it can take well over 100 hours a week (unless it's industrial). It's also hard work, such that people gladly chose to work in a factory for pennies a day rather than be a farmer in most of the world.

This is in contrast to prisons where farming is one occupational training option for inmates, rather than a full-time, "if you don't work, you don't eat" type arrangement. OTOH, I'd imagine people would complain that living like most rural people did 50+ years ago is cruel and unusual.

Re:There is always a way

[jellomizer]

Cable tv, video games are great ways to keep prisoners passified.
Without tv and games prisoners will be using their free time finding new ways to cause trouble.

Re:There is always a way

[TemperedAlchemist]

Because that's slavery. Just because they're in prison does not justify it. They should be given the option to work, but not forced. And they should be fairly compensated for their work (read: minimum wage).

They have already been removed from mainstream society. And I won't let irrational fear and prejudice allow humanity to exploit persons. Regardless of whatever civil rights have been stripped away from them, they are still entitled to whatever fundamental rights all persons are granted: convicted felons or not.

Re:There is always a way

[The Mysterious Dr. X]

http://paizo.com/beginnerbox
I think some table-top roleplaying games would be the perfect solution.
The only problem I foresee is an abnormally high rogue-to-paladin ratio.

Re:There is always a way

[bloodhawk]

ummmm NO. They are in prison to be punished, part of the punishment is removal of many of their rights and freedoms until completion of their punishment. Any work they do should be well below minimum wage as we are paying for them to be in there. Options should be either productive learning or work, entertainment at best should be minimal and certainly not luxury entertainment items that many in society can't even afford, it is not a resort.

Re:There is always a way

[cowboy76Spain]

Correction... if it takes over 100 hours a week it is industrial. Except for a few exceptions (preparing the terrain, seeding, harvesting), farming is not that labour intensive.... The size of the terrain that would need 100 hours a week constantly for just one inmate is so big (keep in mind that terrain would need to be watched as closely as the prison itself) as to doubt about your claim.

Re:There is always a way

[omnichad]

Slavery? No. It earns them the food, clothing, and shelter they get as part of their arrangement. If anybody shouldn't be receiving the welfare of the state, it's people who have already tried to cheat their way to a living or worse.

Re:There is always a way

[jahudabudy]

You realize slaves were fed, clothed and given shelter, right? Forcing someone to work in exchange for the basics of survival while physically preventing them from opting out of providing you with their labor is pretty much the definition of slavery, regardless of the motivation for enslaving them.

Re:There is always a way

[izomiac]

Industrial farming uses modern tools on a single crop whereas rural farming does not, hence why the latter is far more labor intensive. I'm talking about the archetypical American farm with a single family raising crops and livestock primarily for their own consumption. This has fallen way to industrial farming, but people spent pretty much all their time working in that lifestyle. Ask a traditional Amish or Mennonite if you don't believe me.

Re:There is always a way

[TemperedAlchemist]

And here I thought we locked people away to remove them from society and as a form of rehabilitation. Any prison that is based on retribution is primitive and inhumane.

They should only be forced to work if it is apart of their sentence. They will be punished according to what their sentence and law states: no more, no less.

Re:There is always a way

[mjr167]

Slavery would imply that the prisoners are property and thus can be sold. It would also imply that they would never be released. The term you are looking for is 'indentured servant.'

Re:There is always a way

[mjr167]

I have a problem with giving them PS3's because they are expensive. If they want to play a board game or football or anything else that is relatively cheap, I have no problem with that. If YOU are going to give them the PS3 and all the games, that's fine too. But in a time when our governments are strapped for cash, don't go wasting my tax dollars on buying prisoners expensive gaming systems. I also don't own a Kindel or other e-reader because they are expensive. Not all shiny electronics are necessary and I would rather pay my bills on time than have the latest and greatest shiny.

Re:There is always a way

[jahudabudy]

Indentured servants generally were not forced in servitude; except where children were considered property of their parents and the parents signed the contracts on their behalf. Even in those cases, there was some consideration (generally paid transportation) in exchange for the labor above and beyond mere life maintenance.

Prisoners (and their labor) can be transferred, against their will, to a different prison system owned by a different private organization. Sounds a lot like selling property to me. Slavery does not necessarily imply permanence - many systems allow for a slave to earn or be granted freedom.

For me, the non-consensual nature of prisoner labor puts the practice much closer to slavery than indentured servitude. It can be kind of a gray area, I admit. However, even if you prefer the term indentured servitude, it is still involuntary servitude. I realize the prohibition against involuntary servitude made in the 13th Amendment specifically makes an exception in the case of criminal punishment, but that was well before the idea of private organizations administering criminal punishment. Private organizations forcing people to work for less than minimum wage under the threat of physical punishment for failure to do so simply does not strike me as a behavior we as a society shoud allow, regardless of who that person is.

Re:Wii

[Anonymous Coward]

I think grown men forced to play Wii games in prison would be motivational enough to prevent re-offense.

Boo Friggin Hoo

[mr1911]

If prisoners get to sit around playing games, the punishment of prison could easily be less than their punishment outside of prison?

Prisoners should be making big rocks into little rocks.

Re:Boo Friggin Hoo

[syousef]

If prisoners get to sit around playing games, the punishment of prison could easily be less than their punishment outside of prison? Prisoners should be making big rocks into little rocks.

Yes I'm sure that will work well. Bore the prisoners to the point of breaking, and teach them nothing, then dump them back on the streets at the end of that time with no prospects of making money legitimately. Great move. I'm sure that will bring crime rates down. If a prisoner can read a book or play pool or basketball or watch tv lest they go insane and start beating other to a pupl, why not an Xbox once a week?

Re:Boo Friggin Hoo

[sycodon]

So do Tasers, bean bag rounds and tear gas.

Re:Boo Friggin Hoo

[Capt.DrumkenBum]

Prisoners should be making big rocks into little rocks.

I agree with you in all but one detail. Prisoners should be making something useful. Furniture, cars, whatever.

Re:Boo Friggin Hoo

[chuckinator]

As a taxpayer, I object to my tax dollars being used to fund luxury goods for convicts. Spend that money at the prison library. If they complain about being bored, tell them to go read a book.

Re:Boo Friggin Hoo

[imidan]

In most cases, including this one, the prisoner is interested in using his own money to buy an Xbox, not tax dollars.

Re:Boo Friggin Hoo

[Lakitu]

do you really think that every prisoner is 100% bankrupt?

do you really believe that being deprived of your liberty and forced to sit in a prison against your will is not a punishment?

Re:Boo Friggin Hoo

[Sentrion]

Don't we get enough competition from Chinese labor camps with high suicide rates (Google "I-pad factory"), do workers in the free world have to compete against indentured servitude within our own borders? I'm all for prison labor to gain a measure of self sufficiency, but if prisons were made into profitable factories then the powers that be would have too much incentive to put more (possibly innocent) citizens in prison and increase their sentences.

Re:Boo Friggin Hoo

[h4rr4r]

No those are used after the riots start. It is preferred to not have the riot to begin with.

Harsher prisons only lead to harsher ex-cons when they finally get out.

Re:Boo Friggin Hoo

[Bazar]

Its easy to say that when you're outside of the system looking in.

Fact of the matter is that a console, or the odd perk for that matter doesn't make them free men. And in return for such access to perks, we can demand and expect good behaviour or other such tokens in return.

A prison exists to :
protect the people outside from the people inside
create a deterrent to crime by creating a visible punishment
rehabilitate the criminals so they will be less likely/willing to commit future acts of crime.

If access to an entertainment device helps better rehabilitate the inmates, then its worth looking into. Creating a prison that's so badarse that only the strongest survive, isn't going to provide any useful social skills or conditioning... Unless you're trying to create sardaukar troops.

Re:Boo Friggin Hoo

[h4rr4r]

Great idea, slave labor! Surely, no one would ever then bribe judges and police to place more people in jail longer so that his business had a steady source of cheap labor. No, no one should ever do such a thing.

For obvious reasons prisons should cost the taxpayer money. They should also not provide undue profit to any private firm. There are too many possible perverse incentives that come into play.

Re:Boo Friggin Hoo

[khallow]

Just because a library is less hi-tech than a playstation does not mean that it is cheaper.

There's better economies of scale with a book. A single library can serve an entire prison at a time. While a single Xbox, at best, serves a few prisoners.

Re:Boo Friggin Hoo

[h4rr4r]

From jobs they held before prison, from outside family members, form jobs they hold in prison?

They are not being given money by the state you dumb fuck. Cable TV also costs them money to have in there cell. Quite often more then it would normally cost since they have a "captive" audience.

Re:Boo Friggin Hoo

[Anonymous Coward]

Sounds like Criminal Justice 101: Prisons are made to incapacitate (protect society by keeping criminals out of the mainstream), deter future crime, and I will use the obscene "R" word -- rehabilitate. Yes, rehab sounds bad in the US, but an ex-con at a job costs taxpayers far less than one pretty much doing life by the installment plan.

However, since our prison system in the US is going private, where it pays companies to keep people locked up, the lobbyists will keep making sure the politicans keep the rehab out and ensure anyone in will stay in for life, be it added charges, no possibility of gainful employment, etc.

Oh well... better buy your CXW stock. With our political climate, it will outcap Apple in a few years.

Re:Boo Friggin Hoo

[Nadaka]

A: If they work, they must be payed. Slavery is illegal.
B: some of them may have savings or income from outside prison.
C: Some of them may have relatives willing to buy them things or give them money directly.

Re:Boo Friggin Hoo

[h4rr4r]

Great idea, then you can spend even more money when they come back to prison again since all you did was make them more violent and more bitter. None of the tax dollars you don't pay anyway you poor fuck are going for this. These devices are bought with the prisoners own money. These are then used for reward and punishment and preventing riots thus saving the actual taxpayers loads of money.

Re:Boo Friggin Hoo

[mr1911]

That's great. While we are singing kyumbaya, can you explain to me how an Xbox 360, presumably playing a first person shooter game versus something educational, will rehabilitate an inmate?

Before you claim I loaded the question about the game content, consider the prisoners already have access to educational material from the library and are apparently unhappy with that option.

Re:Boo Friggin Hoo

[pluther]

What do you mean "if"? Prisons are already huge profit centers for their owners.

And yes, judges do occasionally get caught getting kickbacks from the prison owners to hand out more and longer sentences.

Re:Boo Friggin Hoo

[Hartree]

"Unless you're trying to create sardaukar troops."

Frank Herbert was telling a good story. I'm a big fan of his novels. I don't take it as paralleling reality.

What you'd really get is very sociopathic types with little ability to trust others.

A group like that would fragment into the individuals it was, and get routed by a real army.

Maybe they'd be somewhat effective concentration camp guards, but I sorta doubt even that.

That's exactly what you don't want in a soldier. Even in armies that commit horrific atrocities (the SS for example), they were trying to build teams. Yes, teams that would unquestioningly follow orders to do horrible things, but teams nonetheless.

Re:Boo Friggin Hoo

[Krishnoid]

Prisoners should be making big rocks into little rocks.

Well in that case, problem solved!

Re:Boo Friggin Hoo

[shutdown -p now]

Clearly we should bring back corporal punishments for minor infractions, and various forms of torture executions for serious offenses. It's a win-win: taxpayers pay less because we don't need that many prisons anymore, and the cost of torture instruments is minimal - but, at the same time, for their money, taxpayers get one hell of a show!

~

Re:Boo Friggin Hoo

[hirundo]

Asteroids?

Re:Boo Friggin Hoo

[Anonymous Coward]

0_0 Because they're in prison, of course.

Re:Boo Friggin Hoo

[icebraining]

By releasing the extra adrenaline playing instead of fighting each other. Learning such techniques can be invaluable for the life outside.

Re:Boo Friggin Hoo

[Zironic]

Well, from what I've understood the Sardaukar did get proper team training, if they failed at their team exercises they were likely to die, so they had a lot of incentive.

Re:Boo Friggin Hoo

[sjames]

Alas, that creates a perverse incentive to expand prisons as a slave labor pool.

Re:Boo Friggin Hoo

[syousef]

If they work, they need to be compensated. Free room and board and utilities and clothes ought to do it.

You left out food. I suppose we should starve them all to death.

People make such idiotic statements then wonder why prisoners re-offend. You forget that punishment is only one function of the prison system. It's other function ought to be reforming the prisoner. Back them into a corner with a medieval stupid attitude like yours and you have criminals who have nothing to lose because once they're labelled it takes heroic effort to get back into society. People think that they are being tough on criminal scum but this approach just reads to a society rife with crime - you turn prisons into criminal incubators. Is that really worth satisfying your sense of revenge/justice.

Re:Boo Friggin Hoo

[syousef]

Just because a library is less hi-tech than a playstation does not mean that it is cheaper.

There's better economies of scale with a book. A single library can serve an entire prison at a time. While a single Xbox, at best, serves a few prisoners.

Worst argument I've heard in a while. You don't just buy one book for a library, and you don't build a library that houses enough books for one man, so why would you expect one Xbox (possibly with one software title???) to serve a prison? Sure you have one physical library but the physical building costs a hell of a lot more than a bunch of Xboxes. Storing, maintaining and managing books costs money.

The best argument you could probably make is that libraries can be used for learning as well as entertainment. But the reality is most reading done in prisons is not for education so even that is weak.

The bottom line is if you put someone in a box and give them nothing to do they won't be rehabilitated, and they won't be less of a danger when they get out - they'll just go mad.

Re:Boo Friggin Hoo

[gfxguy]

Board = food.

You forget that punishment is only one function of the prison system. It's other function ought to be reforming the prisoner.

And where did I mentioned that they shouldn't be "reformed?"

The PRIMARY purpose of prison is punishment and separating someone from society so they don't pose a threat; a DETERRENT from committing crimes in the future. Rehabilitation is important, but is not the primary function of a prison, despite the fact it's important. However, allowing someone to play video games does NOTHING to rehabilitate them.

Re:Boo Friggin Hoo

[j-beda]

The PRIMARY purpose of prison is punishment and separating someone from society so they don't pose a threat; a DETERRENT from committing crimes in the future. Rehabilitation is important, but is not the primary function of a prison, despite the fact it's important. However, allowing someone to play video games does NOTHING to rehabilitate them.

Other than fulfilling your sense of "justice" (or maybe "vengeance") why do you think punishment should be the primary purpose of prison? Do you have any evidence that less pleasant jails act as a more effective deterrent than more pleasant ones?

I would think that the primary purpose of the whole police/judicial system would be to minimize the harm that "miscreants" do to society at large. Thus the primary goal of the whole system should be prevention of crime. For the individual criminal incarcerated, society's primary interest would be to minimize repeat offense, but I suppose if there was evidence that mistreatment of prisoners had significant deterrent effect I guess that would be a consideration. However the opposite seems to be the case in what studies I could easily find. See for example from 2007

http://faculty.som.yale.edu/keithchen/papers/Final_ALER07.pdf

Do Harsher Prison Conditions Reduce Recidivism? A Discontinuity-based Approach
M. Keith Chen, Yale University and Cowles Foundation, and Jesse M. Shapiro, University of Chicago and NBER

We estimate the causal effect of prison conditions on recidivism rates by exploiting a discontinuity in the assignment of federal prisoners to security levels. Inmates housed in higher security levels are no less likely to recidivate than those housed in minimum security; if anything, our estimates suggest that harsher prison conditions lead to more post-release crime. Though small sample sizes limit the precision of our estimates, we argue that our findings may have important implications for prison policy, and that our methodology is likely to be applicable beyond the particular

Re:Boo Friggin Hoo

[scot4875]

I find it amusing how penny-wise and pound-foolish most of you "my tax dollars shouldn't go to THAT" people are.

--Jeremy

Re:Boo Friggin Hoo

[sycodon]

You have to let them out?

Re:Boo Friggin Hoo

[morari]

While I generally agree with you, I also have to take into account just how asinine most "crimes" actually are. The prison system is big business, which makes actual deterrents and thoughtful laws undesirable.

Re:Boo Friggin Hoo

[morari]

Wouldn't bloodsports be more appropriate? Americans already love the violence of football and hockey. Why not force prisons to battle each other to the death. The winner is granted a full pardon. You could even have corporate sponsorship and spectator ticket sales to replace any kind of tax-dollar funding.

Re:Boo Friggin Hoo

[drinkypoo]

The laws vary from country to country and even state to state sometimes, but in the USA you can't pay someone compensation less than minimum wage. You can only withhold so much to cover room and board. I see nothing with finding jobs for prisoners to do, making them do them, and giving them their wages (less the allowable deduction for room and board) at the end of their stay — all the problems I see with the prison system lie somewhere else.

Re:Boo Friggin Hoo

[prionic6]

You mean, just like slaves? They were given all that, most of the time.

Re:Boo Friggin Hoo

[xtracto]

You touch a good point. In Mexico prisons are called something like "centre of social re-adaptation". The /spirit/ is that people go to prison to be re-adapted to be useful in society.

Nevertheless I agree with the sentiment that prisoners should not spend their time in prison mainly playing or having fun. I think prisoners have to pay for two things 1) For the resources they are consuming while in prison (food, electricity, guards, etc) and 2) For the crime they committed.

Prisoners have a debt when they enter prison. For this reason they should be put to work on the most productive tasks they can (sewing, basic manufacturing, picking fruit [now that Mexicans are leaving]) and from whatever salary they "produce", a percentage should be used to pay for their debt.

The problem with prison right now is that for a lot of people often times life inside it is as good or better than life outside. Tax payers money should be used to "enable" locking the bad guys but their stay there should be paid mainly by themselves.

Re:Boo Friggin Hoo

[Issarlk]

Brilliant! Make sure than only the strongest, most vicious prisoners get out of prison, what could possibly go wrong?

Re:Boo Friggin Hoo

[Issarlk]

See: war on drug.

Re:Boo Friggin Hoo

[MBGMorden]

Different views of prisons. You seem to take the view that prisons should serve as rehabilitation centers. Make the incoming people "better" so that they behave after they get out.

Others tend to view prisons as punishment centers. Make the prospect of going to prison so bleak that people think long and hard before committing a crime and going there in the first place.

Neither approach is wrong, and neither is perfect either (in reality it doesn't matter which approach you take - people are still going to commit some crime - it's about reduction, not elimination), but you do have to recognize that there are two opposing stances.

Re:Boo Friggin Hoo

[MBGMorden]

Because prison is all about cutting off access to things. It's not supposed to be like going to summer camp.

Re:Boo Friggin Hoo

[morari]

That doesn't sound any different than the current system.

Re:Boo Friggin Hoo

[mr1911]

Touche. +1000 internets to you.

Re:Boo Friggin Hoo

[neonKow]

That's not really the case here. Not treating all your prisoners like garbage goes beyond rehabilitation vs punishment.

For one thing, these prisoners are clearly not serial killers and such if they're even considering Xboxes and PS3s. The issue they cited with the consoles was not being able to remove internet access, which I feel shouldn't be that hard to deal with. And yes, it will make it a lot easier to run and keep order in the prison, which isn't easy in the first place.

Sending even your minor offense prisoners off to break rocks is not very practical.

Also: even in a more rehabilitation-oriented system, being in prison still sucks more than being out of it. Freedom and privacy are a big deal to most people, and you don't get much of either in prison.

PS2?

[tmosley]

Why not allow them the cheaper PS2s? I'm hoping this is on their own money, rather than being paid for by the Israeli and American taxpayer.

Re:PS2?

[MarkGriz]

"Why not allow them the cheaper PS2s"

How about, because they are f*#king prisoners.

Re:PS2?

[tmosley]

US gives money to Israel, so any spending they do comes partially from the American taxpayer.

Re:PS2?

[Sentrion]

OK, but how much military and economic aid does the US give to Israel, and other Semitic nations for that matter? If that aid stimulates their economy, enabling their citizens to pay taxes, taxes to build prisons, etc. - then you can trace this matter straight back to the US taxpayer. If there is a scheme in place where prisoners generate enough economic output to pay the full price for these gaming systems, then I do not object. What Israelis do to prisoners in their country is their business.

Re:PS2?

[h4rr4r]

What does that have to do with it?

They are still people and we would prefer they come out better than they went in. These sorts of things are hugely useful in that respect, they also allow for a simple level of punishment and reward inside prison. Prisoners who misbehave can have their video games taken away.

Re:PS2?

[h4rr4r]

They are still people, your inability to see that marks you as the inhumane one.

Re:PS2?

[Unequivocal]

Your last point is about as good as it gets, IMO. If we have great stuff in prisons for prisoners to do, then we have a political economy which we can tinker with to try to get meaningful outcomes. If we have a part of the prison where prisoners can play music, video games, watch movies AND take classes, get good grades and contribute; and we have part of the prison where they break rocks into smaller rocks, sit in their cells, walk around outside for 30 min a day, we can then let each and every prisoner decide which part of the prison they want to live in. If we can make prison choices more like the choices that exist in the real world, the better chance prisoners will have of being able to make good choices on the outside.

Not to be all pollyanna - recognizing there are some seriously f-ed up people inside, drug addicted, abused as children, retarded, mentally ill and just plain old angry. But still modeling effective choices is the only way forward..

The notion that punishment and incentives/improvement are incompatible is ridiculous, in my opinion. Thanks for your comment.

Re:PS2?

[MarkGriz]

Of course they are still people. They are just people who chose not to live by society's rules, and thus should not be afforded
the privileges of video games or other such leisure. It's prison FFS. My kids don't get to play video games when they break the rules either.

Instead of giving them video games, how about teaching them a skill. After all, isn't the supposed purpose of prison
to rehabilitate. Maybe if they had something to offer society when they get out, they can become valuable members of it again.

No speaka da English!

[syousef]

Therefore, prisoners cannot engage in gaming and will have to result to other kinds of violence.

It would be nice if the slashdot editors would resort to other kinds of editing.

Summary implies falsehood.

[quietwalker]

The old adage of 'they need to get it out of their system' - this is a falsehood: prisoners do not have to "result to other kinds of violence" in the absence of a substitute. If you are prone to violent acts, with all other variables being equal, you'll commit violent acts even after having already committed violent acts. Even with a violence simulator, you're still going to perform the other violence outside it that you were supposed to be suppressing.

Mike Tyson was a good example; all day long he's sparring with partners, hitting punching bags, shadowboxing. Then he beats and rapes a woman, and later looses his temper and bites an opponent's ear. Despite having 'worked it out of his system' hundreds of times more than a normal person, he's still violent.

People don't have violence meters that you can fill up. Stop perpetuating this invalid belief like it was common sense.

Re:Summary implies falsehood.

[Anonymous Coward]

1. Sitting on your couch pressing a button to show a boxing glove punch is very different from getting up and beating the shit out of a bean bag or sparing with another human.

2. Mike Tyson is not representative of even 10 other human beings.

Re:Summary implies falsehood.

[Hartree]

"1. Sitting on your couch pressing a button to show a boxing glove punch is very different from getting up and beating the shit out of a bean bag or sparing with another human."

Yeah. It's a hell of a lot poorer workout.

"2. Mike Tyson is not representative of even 10 other human beings."

A meaningless statement. Yes, he's an extreme rarity in boxing ability.

That says relatively little about his personality or impulse control ability.

Re:Summary implies falsehood.

[izomiac]

Or, a classic psych example is that if you become conditioned to punch something (e.g. pillow, wall, tree, whatever) when you're angry, guess what happens when the only punchable thing nearby is someone's face?

The problem is WiFi

[Fallen Kell]

The court has an issue with the fact that they have WiFi built into them. I don't know why they can't simply let him disable the WiFi since it should be pretty easy to do so (on the original PS3 60GB "Fat" models, you can remove the wifi/bluetooth board/card and that would disable it. The only downside is that you need to connect your controllers via USB cable as they used the bluetooth connection for their signals).

Re:The problem is WiFi

[Anonymous Coward]

Or just give him one of the older 360's that has no built in wifi.

Re:The problem is WiFi

[vuo]

The court was wise in here. It's never OK to underestimate the ingenuity of the inmates. At the now-closed Katajanokka prison in Helsinki, inmates made a tattoo machine out of a vibration motor extracted from a PS2 DualShock controller. In this case, a USB wireless modem is small enough for "internal mail", and any components broken by the guards can be potentially replaced. And whenever you ask "what's the harm", the problem is similar to Pablo Escobar's case. He was officially in jail but in practice in house arrest, and could meet criminal associates and order hits at will. An Internet connection would be a virtual license to continue criminal activities.

Only Czar's Russia got it right: first you were deported to a jail in Siberia, and then all correspondence is disallowed - you're prevented even from reading newspapers. And if you want to step up from this, which would be appropriate for drug lords and the like, the method is called Nacht und Nebel.

Re:The problem is WiFi

[91degrees]

Can the court - even a the best of times not very tech-savvy - be absolutely certain that this can be done reliably and permanently?

They're err-ing on the side of caution here. There's no reason that the prison has to give them a PS3 after all. If they have some sort of good behaviour rewards system in place, then they can find other rewards to offer.

Re:The problem is WiFi

[h4rr4r]

Actually that would not be appropriate for any human. I don't want to live in Soviet Russia nor Nazi Germany, those are the kinds of places that do the stuff you are talking about.

Those places did not get it right, they got everything wrong.

Re:The problem is WiFi

[KevMar]

I would hope that they don't allow random wireless items on the network.

This would be a great time to rediscover the classics console games. Yeh, it's not the hot new thing but there is a lot of replay value in some of those older tittles. It's better than nothing.

Re:The problem is WiFi

[grumbel]

I don't know why they can't simply let him disable the WiFi since it should be pretty easy to do so

My guess would be that the problem isn't disabling WiFi, but allowing the guards to verify that it stays that way, which is a hell of a lot harder to do. And the difference between console models would also be a problem, while some versions allow you to rip out the WiFi part, others might have it soldered to the motherboard, adding more complications into the mix.

If I were a prisoner...

[The MAZZTer]

I would settle for harmed functionality over none.

Tv is used as a contol tool in prisons

[Joe_Dragon]

And most of them pay for it with the high priced Commissary.

Am I the only one?

[Servaas]

Who went "huh he requested an xbox in an Israeli prison..." somehow, being from the netherlands where even some of the worst offenders get max 8 years plus mental support, I was surprised he even got the chance to request it. So much for being jaded.

Re:Am I the only one?

[ackthpt]

Who went "huh he requested an xbox in an Israeli prison..." somehow, being from the netherlands where even some of the worst offenders get max 8 years plus mental support, I was surprised he even got the chance to request it. So much for being jaded.

Different countries, different rules.

I'm still perplexed how Israel continues to paint Palestinians as the obstruction to peace, while countering recognition from UNESCO with more building on occupied land. (While Isreal was effectively carved from the heart of Palestine and is recognised and a member of the UN.) Bloody weird country, if you ask me.

Huh?

[ZorinLynx]

I doubt there's an open Wifi network in the prison... So why does the presence of a Wifi chipset or ethernet port even matter? There's nothing to connect it to.

Re:Huh?

[jdkramar]

Someone outside the prison is going to use a directional antenna and point it at whatever location they keep the console at. And then the prisoner can talk to other people, albeit via typing with the controller.

Re:Huh?

[king neckbeard]

chain the console down somewhere a cantenna couldn't reach

Re:Huh?

[wisnoskij]

Because they do not want people from outside of the prison setting up a wifi network to exchange information.

Re:Huh?

[shadowrat]

maybe his friend's car is outside with a mobile hotspot? or a pringle can antenna in a building across the street?

Don't get it

[microbee]

If they don't want this to be online, just don't hook it up to the network. It can still play games. What's the problem?

Or, give him a jailbroken console (no pun intended) that has been banned. Heck, I can sell mine for a good price!

Re:Another market...

[gbl08ma]

And epoxy the ethernet port on the Model B, and make sure nobody's bringing WLAN or 3G USB adapters into jail.

So if the purpose is to punish

[rsilvergun]

why not increase the punishment, so as to act as a deterrent? We can keep it completely harmless. How about Waterboarding?

Re:Wii

[Fluffeh]

What, the image of four hardened inmates, sporting tats, scars and bad facial hair all bobbing around playing Mario Cart holding little white steering wheels doesn't almost make you want to commit a crime just to join in the banter and merriment?

Whiskey-Tango-Foxtrot

[PortHaven]

Everyone arguing about whether the ethernet port can be removed from an Xbox 360 or not.

The real question is why even consider giving an Xbox 360 to a prisoner.

!@#$% NO!!!!!

I have barely had time to even touch my Xbox 360 in the past year. I'm too busy working and commuting to work so I can keep my mortgage paid, heat running and food on the table for my family.

I don't see anyone out there leaping up to provide me with an Xbox 360 or PS3. I haven't had cable TV for the past 5 years. Can't afford it. Frankly, I'm tired of prisoners having it easier than law abiding citizens. I'm tired of prisoners receiving free cable, Xboxes, college degrees.

I'm tired of armed robbers being sentenced to 10 years and released in 9 months only to rob and shoot an innocent within days of release.

So sorry if I'm not very sympathetic. But you know, we outsource so much. Why not outsource our violent criminals to China. Oh human rights, work camps, whoop-de-doo. You should have thought about that before you robbed some poor sap on the stream and put a knife into him.

***********

People in America blame a lot of things for our high crime, guns, drugs, you name it. But I think it's the fact that our criminal system is so freakishly gentle to violent habitual lifestyle criminals.

Ironically, Joe-avg guy who's registration lapses or turn signal light went out finds himself fined and treated like a criminal. Go figure...

Ranting, yes, I know. But we're talking about toys for criminals. I want to see every friggin able bodied criminal have to work 8 hours a day, just like the rest of us. And if you don't, you don't eat. Plain and simple.

Re:Whiskey-Tango-Foxtrot

[PortHaven]

And yes, I know this did not happen in America. It happened in Israel. But it happens in America all the time too.

Sheriff removes cable TV from the prisons and the court system orders him to put it back.

$280,000 on cable bill for about 20 prisons.
http://www.tulsaworld.com/news/article.aspx?articleID=20081204_12_0_OKLAHO673257

U.K how much on toys for prisoners? Why not spend that money on children instead?
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1040932/Pampered-prisoners-supplied-221-726-PlayStations.html

Re:Whiskey-Tango-Foxtrot

[Hatta]

Nobody's suggesting that this prisoner be given an Xbox. The request was that he be allowed to purchase an Xbox. That's a bit less controversial. If we allow them books, why not other media as well?

If America's prison system is so soft that it encourages crime, then Scandanavia should be swarming with murderers. Finland has open prisons and a very low recidivism rate. On the other hand, the US has one of the toughest prison systems in the developed world, and we still have the highest crime rates. Your hypothesis does not fit the data.

Re:Whiskey-Tango-Foxtrot

[Lakitu]

No wonder the tea party is so popular, when people like you are ready to foam at the mouth about the government buying a prisoner a PS3 without even spending a second to think about it.

Do you really think every prisoner is 100% broke? The guy wanted to buy a PS3. Prisoners have money. Some prisoners can even work in-house for pennies on the dollar, not only getting paid pennies on the dollar, but being forced to spend a large fraction of the money they earned towards court fines, incarceration fees, restitution, previous loans, child support, etc.

Prisoners are already deprived of their individual liberty, being forced to live imprisoned against their will. Allowing the guy to spend money on entertainment, such as a PS3, so that he has less motivation to start fights, do drugs, or practice criminal networking is a good thing for anyone who is not and does not ever plan to be in a prison.

Think before you speak, dumbfuck. You could have spent 2 seconds thinking about what being a prisoner would actually be like instead of flipping on the angry-mob switch and blaming other people for your own problems. Maybe you should have re-upped your registration on time.

Re:Whiskey-Tango-Foxtrot

[Fished]

Have you ever visited a prison? I have, as a pastor, and I think it's a horrible place I would never want to have to live. For every "country club", Federal, minimum security prison, there are ten state-rub hell-holes perpetuating a cycle of misery that started for African American men (I'm white, BTW) generations ago. This is tolerated because the "law and order" types like you don't actually see how the justice system actually works.

Re:Whiskey-Tango-Foxtrot

[Sentrion]

I think many, including myself, have to agree with you. For those who are on the lower end of the economic totem pole, is there not more incentive to use illegal drugs, drugs that can make you not care about how poor you are, and then if you get caught using or selling, then you get to be sheltered, clothed, educated, and - evidently - entertained? If you are already a selfish, lazy, low-life, you already have too much incentive to break the law and get caught. And if you don't get caught, well, why not try to keep mugging and stealing to profit yourself? You have nothing to lose.

I sometimes wonder if this dis-incentive that is built into our criminal justice system isn't a major factor for the incredible population that is in our prison system right now. Yet if anyone suggests that the public should reach out to these populations BEFORE they end up in prison, all you hear in response are complaints about taxpayer money "wasted" on the special interests, or that such public assistance creates a welfare state of lazy people that leach off the system, or suggestions that politician's that try to create such programs are COMMUNISTS with an agenda to destroy white, Christian America.

Re:Whiskey-Tango-Foxtrot

[DM9290]

I want to see every friggin able bodied criminal have to work 8 hours a day, just like the rest of us. And if you don't, you don't eat. Plain and simple.

So unemployable prisoners should be left to starve or freeze to death, just like on America's streets.. sounds fair.

If you think the US is freakishly gentle on Criminals you should come visit Canada. We even let prisoners vote and participate in our democracy like actual humans.

Re:Whiskey-Tango-Foxtrot

[YrWrstNtmr]

state-rub hell-holes

Go on...

Re:Whiskey-Tango-Foxtrot

[rahvin112]

The real question is why even consider giving an Xbox 360 to a prisoner.

They aren't giving him anything. He's asking to purchase with his own money a gaming console to likely use for the 12+ hours a day he's locked in a barred room. Much like the XBox he pays for everything but his food including soap, cigarettes and any other product he wants. Not only that but the prison vastly inflates the products sold at the commissary to sometime 10x their normal cost to soak money from the prisoners.

I have barely had time to even touch my Xbox 360 in the past year. I'm too busy working and commuting to work so I can keep my mortgage paid, heat running and food on the table for my family.

I don't see anyone out there leaping up to provide me with an Xbox 360 or PS3. I haven't had cable TV for the past 5 years. Can't afford it. Frankly, I'm tired of prisoners having it easier than law abiding citizens. I'm tired of prisoners receiving free cable, Xboxes, college degrees.

Nice bit of whining and demanding that if you can't play yours no one should be able to. Nice selfish attitude.

I'm tired of armed robbers being sentenced to 10 years and released in 9 months only to rob and shoot an innocent within days of release.

Then you better start petitioning the government to do away with drug prohibition. Because it's drug minimum mandatory sentences that are putting killers and rapists back on the street in 90 days. When more than 75% of the people in prison are there because of drugs (use or selling) and the real criminals go free you get the American prison system.

People in America blame a lot of things for our high crime, guns, drugs, you name it. But I think it's the fact that our criminal system is so freakishly gentle to violent habitual lifestyle criminals.

Horseshit. If prison was a deterrent the US would have the lowest crime rates in the world. Our prisons are the most violent, the most dangerous and by far the most confining than almost any in the world. Ironically, the most successful prisons (in preventing future crime) are the Norwegians and others that spend their prison time playing volleyball and learning, which if your beliefs were correct would have the highest recidivism in the world, currently the US holds that title with the strictest prisons. Maybe just maybe treating people like humans trying to teach them that crime isn't the answer is a better solution that simply trying to beat them into submission. And maybe just maybe you would feel differently if you spent some time there like all the innocent people in prison. With all the death row inmates being found innocent I wouldn't be surprised if half the incarcerated were innocent of any crime.

Re:Whiskey-Tango-Foxtrot

[sjames]

Then rob a bank!

They probably deserve it and if you get away with it you have plenty of cash. If not, you'll have it easier than a law abiding citizen.

Re:Whiskey-Tango-Foxtrot

[j-beda]

People in America blame a lot of things for our high crime, guns, drugs, you name it. But I think it's the fact that our criminal system is so freakishly gentle to violent habitual lifestyle criminals.

Strange how the countries with lower crime rates seem also to have criminal systems that focus more on rehab than being harsh, eh?

Ranting, yes, I know. But we're talking about toys for criminals. I want to see every friggin able bodied criminal have to work 8 hours a day, just like the rest of us. And if you don't, you don't eat. Plain and simple.

I guess I have to ask - what is your ultimate goal? If you are looking to actually change people's future behaviour, the evidence seems to indicate that "harsher sentencing" does little good for those caught, and has little deterrent value for those contemplating a "life of crime". Is it just about making you feel better about how tough your life is?

Just like beating your kid, harsh punishment doesn't cause the recipient to say "Gosh, what I did was wrong, I should change my ways" - mostly it causes the recipient to say "Everyone treats me like shit, I'm going to get back at them and treat everyone else like shit the first chance I get - but next time I won't get caught."

Re:Whiskey-Tango-Foxtrot

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem here is that the prisons in the USA are full of Americans. You generally don't get that problem in other countries! ;)

Re:Whiskey-Tango-Foxtrot

[FunkSoulBrother]

$280,000 on cable bill for about 20 prisons.
http://www.tulsaworld.com/news/article.aspx?articleID=20081204_12_0_OKLAHO673257

They should just deny the cable company license to do business in the greater community if they don't just provide this for free. Problem Solved, people win. Let the cable company do their civic duty if they want to be deemed a citizen.

Re:Whiskey-Tango-Foxtrot

[cowboy76Spain]

Oh boy, breathe a little until the red color in your sight disappear....

First, you are missing the whole point just to rant a little (the sentence time has nothing to do about that).

Inmates have some rights (if it disturbs you, then you can go fuck yourself). They are sentenced to x time of privation of liberty, not x time of torture or assault by other inmates or living in a dangerous environment. Do you think it is too soft? Vote one of those demagogues that promise a "hard line" (but don't be surprised when they apply it to you).

Since you don't seem to bother to even RTFS, I'll explain it to you dumbed down: Inmates are allowed certains gadgets based on some given rules. Inmate asks that he is allowed a gadget that does not follow the rules. It is denied. Inmate sues. Inmate loses.

So, what is the reason for the rant (other than showing us your poor reading skills)? Showing off your righteous indignation? We are not really impressed, can't you see it?

Re:Whiskey-Tango-Foxtrot

[Thiez]

> I have barely had time to even touch my Xbox 360 in the past year. I'm too busy working and commuting to work so I can keep my mortgage paid, heat running and food on the table for my family.

That's your fault. If you were living more like a prisoner, for example renting a single room apartment in a highly undesirable neighbourhood, and not having a family, you would have plenty of money left. Then you could get a worse-paying job near your home (you could even sell your car and save a lot on gas: get a bike
instead), and you would have all the time in the world to play on your Xbox.

Instead you chose to have a family and bought an expensive house. If that doesn't make you happy there is nobody to blame but yourself.

Re:Whiskey-Tango-Foxtrot

[donscarletti]

I worked 12 hours today and 14 yesterday, but then again I also have money entering my bank account every month and 1% ownership of the company I work for. I figure this is better than sitting around in a cell for the most productive years of my life and coming out with nothing.

Re:Whiskey-Tango-Foxtrot

[bell.colin]

Because it's "supposed" to be PUNISHMENT! (not enjoyable!)

They're supposed to be miserable. That's the fucking point of prison, make you miserable enough NOT to do anything to get there again.

Prisons are for them to be fucking punished!

Another punishment

[ripdajacker]

Prisoners should learn to debug code, and take on some of the real issues in this world.

Re:Another punishment

[d4fseeker]

That would give a lot of bad press due to high suicide rates. Additionally the prison's coffee machine would break down within a week.

Re:Another punishment

[ripdajacker]

But at least programmers would get the bad boy status with the ladies, and lets face it: It's worth all the coffee machines in the world!

Re:Not possible ???

[Fluffeh]

Some people don't even have enough money to get it in their homes.

You know, I would be quite happy if every prisoner had a playstation or xbox while they were doing time. Even if one in a hundred got really into gaming, and when they got out kept playing rather than going back to crime, it would certainly be worth the investment. It's probably a bit too optimistic, but that's the way I roll these days.

Give them a Nintendo 64.

[Kenja]

and a copy of Superman 64.

Re:Give them a Nintendo 64.

[Itesh]

That's still too nice; a 2600 with a copy of E.T. (I'm sure that one of the thousands in the landfill where they are buried will still work).

Re:Another market...

[somersault]

Or, don't leave unsecured wifi running in your prison?

We're overlooking the obvious here:

[pecosdave]

How may prison cells have Ethernet jacks in them?

Even without Ethernet jacks would there actually be anything to connect to WiFi with? I'm pretty sure you could permanently disable WiFi without killing the system, mostly by attacking it from the antenna angle, maybe even the radio (I really don't know these things on the board level).

Re:We're overlooking the obvious here:

[pecosdave]

Good points. The PS3 if I'm not mistaken can use PS2 controls with USB adapters, this could be the work-around they're looking for.

The only modern home system I have is a Wii, and I could imagine it would be useless without the Wii-Remotes, even if you do try to use GameCube control compatible games.

Re:English, motherfarker...!

[Kal Zekdor]

"Therefore, prisoners cannot engage in gaming and will have to result to other kinds of violence."

Can you explain that one away? You may be technically correct in your arguments, but there is essentially zero chance that the author is well versed in the historic etymology of English. Even a broken clock et cetera, et cetera...

Whew!

[argStyopa]

At least prisoners are otherwise able to get game consoles. Otherwise prison would be downright inhumane....almost like PUNISHMENT.

Re:Whew!

[Lakitu]

do you really think being deprived of your personal liberty is not a punishment?

Re:Whew!

[DM9290]

At least prisoners are otherwise able to get game consoles. Otherwise prison would be downright inhumane....almost like PUNISHMENT.

yeah.. because being inhumane is what punishment is supposed to be.

I hope you never have children.

they don't get free cable

[Joe_Dragon]

In some prisons they have to pay for it and or work for right to have a TV. Prisoners have to buy the TV as well.

Other prisons pay for it with the money made at the prison commissary.

Other prisons have the guards living with them.

NO Xbox or other stuff in most cells prison can buy stuff like decks of cards.

for tv Prisons are billed like hotels pay per room / drop.

Glue might be chipped out.

[khasim]

Why not start with a basic firewall on the prison's network?

They DO have a firewall, right? For the legitimate Internet traffic of the guards and the administrators, right? Right?

Or, just don't run an Ethernet connection to the cell. I mean, having an Ethernet cable would be an issue anyway! Why even provide a data jack for them to use?

Re:Glue might be chipped out.

[Wamoc]

Or, just don't run an Ethernet connection to the cell. I mean, having an Ethernet cable would be an issue anyway! Why even provide a data jack for them to use?

Modern game consoles also have built-in wireless. Even if the prison has no WiFi, they could hijack a nearby unencrypted wireless...

Re:Glue might be chipped out.

[d4fseeker]

The problem is that _ALL_ major gaming consoles currently produced not only ship with Ethernet but also with Wireless.
While it's certainly possible to just remove the internally plugged-in Wifi-Card of the 360Slim "Trinity", I doubt it will work as desired unless Microsoft provides a special dashboard for their buddies.
Alternatively they could just JTAG the consoles with the Glitch-Hack and run non-official dashboards, but well....

Re:Glue might be chipped out.

[gfxguy]

Or, easier still, tell them they can't have a gaming machine because they simply don't deserve one instead of coming up with an easily overcome technical reason.

Re:Glue might be chipped out.

[locketine]

Why does the prisoner need a new 360. The first 3 years of production had no built-in wireless. Also, the 360 has no web browser and in fact all forms of Internet connectivity goes through xbox live so MS would just have to ban the console and that would be end of story for anyone but a firmware engineer or seasoned hacker.

Re:English, motherfarker...!

[Baloroth]

What a noff-topic point.

Shouldn't have been crimes in the first place

[tepples]

How many are being punished for things that shouldn't have been crimes in the first place?

Re:Shouldn't have been crimes in the first place

[tepples]

How about we go back to fines, like the ancient Jews had. They didn't use prisons.

Re:Not possible ???

[xstonedogx]

So instead of stealing a PS3 for heroin money they steal it for their own use? I guess that's better. :)

Civilized

[jprupp]

But we're supposed to be a civilized society that don't send people to prison for "punishment", but instead to avoid further harm to others.

Oh shit!, sorry, wrong planet!

Re:Civilized

[mr1911]

What makes the lack of punishment "civilized"?

Re:Civilized

[an unsound mind]

What makes the avoidance of unnecessary brutality civilized?

Well, I'm stumped.

Re:Civilized

[demonlapin]

You truly think that any punishment other than separating the offender from society is unnecessary brutality?

Re:Civilized

[an unsound mind]

Prison should keep people from re-offending - separation from the society works fine this way, and rehabilitation helps to keep that effect post-prison.

Judging from statistics, it does look an awful lot like severity of punishment does not serve as a significant deterrent to other people - therefore, any aim to punish offenders instead of rehabilitating them is unnecessary brutality.

Disagree

[vuo]

Finland is ridiculously accommodating of habitual offenders. In fact you'll have to kill about three times before they take it seriously. There's no criminal-law mechanism to give a murderer an actual life sentence, so most are released at 12 years. Furthermore, the court system rejects a lot of cases based on "lack of evidence" and considers many premeditated killings "manslaughters", which means that the sentence is formally 9 years and in practice it is only half of that. If mental incapacity is found, then the sentence is even shorter. So, we have cases like the drive-in lane shooter who have already killed several people and are still roaming free on the streets and shooting people at random. Consequently, the only legal way to actually keep a dangerous killer in jail is involuntary commitment. Since funding for psychiatry is short, this method is rarely used. There was even one case where a psychotic neckbearded guy killed a random teenage girl on the street just to get committed to a psychiatric hospital; he had been previously made an outpatient to save funds.

Re:Disagree

[Hatta]

And yet their murder rate is half that in the US.

Re:Disagree

[vuo]

Three times higher than Western Europe in general, in where you have actual life sentences for example.

not giveing healthcare to prisons is cruel

[Joe_Dragon]

They have the right to see a doctor and you have to feed prisons but the food sucks and a lot of prisons buy food at commissary.

Re:not giveing healthcare to prisons is cruel

[Nidi62]

you have to feed prisons but the food sucks and a lot of prisons buy food at commissary.

The food might taste bad, but the calorie level of the meals is a lot higher than what a lot of people get outside prison.

Re:Not possible ???

[Fluffeh]

Quite possibly, but it is still the lesser of two evils isn't it? Seriously, if I was to pick an addiction for a friend, and I had the choices of heroin or PS3 gaming, it would be an easy choice.

Re:Prison should be punishment

[h4rr4r]

Fear and punishment might give you a stiffy but they don't work. What we want is rehabilitated prisoners not people more angry and violent than when they went in.

Re:Another market...

[Luckyo]

The issue would be someone who wants to communicate with prisoner simply parking a car with Wi-Fi base station nearby.

Re:Not possible ???

[dougmc]

Some people don't even have enough money to get it in their homes.

Do we need to make sure that every prisoner is treated worse than the worst treated person who isn't in prison?

After all, most prisoners at least get fed and get health care -- there's no such guarantees outside.

If they're good prisoners, let them have a gaming console. It's another carrot that can be taken away if they become bad prisoners.

Prison and games

[Firethorn]

Okay, so you don't think prisoners should be 'given' video games.

I can understand the logic, however, on second thought I can see reasonings TO do so:
1. It's something to do other than scheme escape, shanking a fellow prisoner or guard, etc...
2. Privilage is one of the ways you can control prisoners - by giving them access to luxuries for good behavior, you encourage it. The old 'nothing to lose' maxim applies
3. Integration back into society. You make prison too harsh, too alien, and they're actually less likely to reform.

In many prison systems, the prisoner would have to buy the $499 system with their own money - earned at $.50/hour.

Re:Prison and games

[Kal Zekdor]

Fair enough. I'm not claiming to be an expert on criminal reintegration or anything. Points 2 and 3 make sense, though point 1 sounds a little far fetched, In the end, I suppose it all comes down to what the person in question was imprisoned for. If you've been sentenced to life in prison for first-degree murder, for instance, I don't think you deserve luxury. For prisoners who are more likely to be successfully reformed, though, luxuries as a reward for good behavior does make sense.

Re:Prison and games

[AngryDeuce]

They should be educating them. Giving them the tools they need to not re-offend. I know there is already programs, but it should be mandatory, not optional. Letting them sit there and play video games is not helping them, it's not teaching them anything.

There was a life before video games existed, you know. For thousands of years people got their recreation through physical activity, friendly competition between themselves, and the ancient equivalent of board games like Chess, Go, Backgammon...they need mental stimulation, not CoD: Black Ops or Arkham City. There's no reason why they can't continue to do so in prison.

I mean, most of society actually enjoys learning new things, expanding their skills...maybe more of that and less of the 'sit in your cell and stare at a TV' would do them some good.

Re:Prison and games

[Firethorn]

If you've been sentenced to life in prison for first-degree murder, for instance, I don't think you deserve luxury.

Again, understandable. Still, unless it's 'without parole', odds are that he's going to have to reintigrate with society sometime(maybe when he's 60 or so).

Meanwhile, #2 still applies - a game station is actually a very cheap distraction if it prevents a single serious incident. Figure $10k if somebody's stabbed, $100k+ for a prison riot, etc...

I'm not saying that you coddle them - just that you enable them to earn privilages through good behavior.

Re:Prison and games

[an unsound mind]

Most of those things involve other people. These are prisoners, possibly violent.

Video games are used for much the same negligent parents use them for here - to keep people who would need attention busy and easy to manage.

Re:Prison and games

[demonlapin]

Giving them the tools they need to not re-offend.

To the extent that committing felonies is something caused by a lack of "tools" to deal with society normally, the #1 tool would be wiping their felony conviction record. Very few places will take a chance on an ex-con, especially one who was locked up for a violent crime.

Re:Prison and games

[meerling]

When you're staring at gray walls and bars all day, I'm pretty sure you can consider Batman: Arkham mental stimulation. As for me, I find chess, go, and backgammon mind-numbing boredom, little better than counting your fingers...

I have a feeling I would go insane in prison.

Re:Prison and games

[pointbeing]

...Meanwhile, #2 still applies - a game station is actually a very cheap distraction if it prevents a single serious incident. Figure $10k if somebody's stabbed, $100k+ for a prison riot, etc...

The reason they have cable TV in prisons is to reduce the number of guards required to manage prisoners. I don't have real numbers but I'd wager that paying a couple of prison guards for a year is considerably more expensive than a year's worth of cable TV.

Inmates and entertainment

[Firethorn]

It's been mentioned elsewhere, but one cannot generally read only educational material for entertainment. Heck, many prisoners are functionally illiterate. Thus, reading, even learning to read, is work for them.

The games are to rewind, something other than lifting weights, playing basketball, or such.

Plus, it's an incentive - act like a civilized human being, get some of the benefits of being one. Don't act like a civilized being, and your game station is taken away(along with everything else in your cell), or you don't get one in the first place.

Re:Inmates and entertainment

[ganjadude]

well if they are illiterate...maybe they should take that time to learn to, you know, read? than maybe they can get a job and not be a criminal when they get out? or you know, we could let them beat hoes and shoot cops playing GTA, not that I am against the idea of granting rewards to good inmates, im just saying

Re:Inmates and entertainment

[mr1911]

Plus, it's an incentive - act like a civilized human being, get some of the benefits of being one. Don't act like a civilized being, and your game station is taken away(along with everything else in your cell), or you don't get one in the first place.

So, doing something bad gets your incentive taken away. Say for instance, you kill someone. Then you go to prison. Then you get an XBox. Yeah, I see it now.

Re:Inmates and entertainment

[Firethorn]

So, doing something bad gets your incentive taken away. Say for instance, you kill someone. Then you go to prison. Then you get an XBox. Yeah, I see it now.

First, not everyone goes to prison for murder. Are you proposing denying the guy sentenced to prison for 7 years for drug dealing, DUI, theft, etc... if he's being good? How about as a reward to a gang-banger for stopping said association?

Okay, let's say that you DID kill someone. Then you go to prison, where you're not free to do what you want, see your family when you want, go to the park when you want, etc... After approximately a year, if you've been good, you might have an opportunity to buy an X-Box for $499(yes, you pay more than MSRP for the crippled 'prison special' version), while having worked for $.70/hour. So 714 hours of work, 'only' 18 weeks, not including any other expenses - toiletries, non-chow hall food, books, paper, whatever. Assuming you're good enough to be trusted with the job in the first place, of course. Oh yeah, and you're probably going to have to buy the $799 19" TV first(clear shatterproof acrylic paneling and such).

The point to prison should be reform, more than just punishment. Often part of that is presenting them with a clear punishment/reward system. Be good, gradually earn more privilages. Be bad and your life will quickly suck worse than when you first came in.

As somebody else mentioned - cable TV helps reduce the need for prison guards(you're essentially drugging them, but eh...). By my calcs, even the expensive cable bills start at a 6:1 return(saves $6 for every $1 spent) if it eliminates the need for 2 guards. Depending, it's likely that it reduces more than 2 guards, and I was going by salary, not cost - so 12 to 1 isn't unlikely.

Re:Inmates and entertainment

[mr1911]

My heart does not bleed for anyone committing any of the crimes you list.

I am not in favor of ever giving a prisoner cable TV or a game console for any reason whatsoever. There is no reason to further turn their brains to mush.

If you want to help them, good behavior gets you into the library, or into the classroom offering anywhere from basic life skills through a high school diploma, or into a work program, or a host of other things that can help a prisoner better themselves and have a hope of integrating into society as a useful member. I might be swayed on the TV argument if the only channels available were PBS and the History Channel.

If you are only looking to "drug them", then just drug them. You will need fewer guards than with the artificial TV and XBox "drugs" you propose.

Staying current on Judge Judy or Grand Theft Auto will not help the prisoners. It will condition them that being a sloth is acceptable. They will continue the sloth behavior after release, only turning to crime when they need/want money or goods.

Re:Inmates and entertainment

[Firethorn]

I don't care whether your heart bleeds or not. I doubt you noticed, but I'm not exactly a bleeding heart type myelf. Well, not unless I freshly tore it out for my dinner. ;)

I've phrased everything for two points:
1: Managed properly, access to game systems, along with TV, books, magazines, whatever, can be used to fashing a reward system to give prisoners incentive to behave. Said incentives for good behavior can help on reforms.
2: Again, managed properly said systems can make for a more 'content'(not necessarily happy) prison population, that's less likely to revolt, takes less manpower to manage, and therefore costs less. Given that I have to pay taxes, I'm willing to let prisoners have (basic)TV if each dollar spent on it saves $12, and doesn't impose other significant issues. You seem to be arguing 'I don't care if it costs me another $100 in taxes each year, no niceties for prisoners!!!'

As for the educational rant - I've said it elsewhere: Prisoners aren't some RTS peon that can only do one thing. It's quite possible for them to spend 8 hours working, 4 hours in class or studying, 1 hour working out, 2 hours eating/washing/cleaning, and have 1 hour left for watching TV or playing games. Sure, make the most of the library and class system. But holding classes in a prison is fairly expensive, and even a library costs a suprising amount of money.

As for drugging them, the levels I've seen for TV amounts to $12 a convict a year. It would be hard to have a program that drugs them for cheaper than that. Drug them to the point they aren't a danger and you're not only spending a lot on drugs, you're going to have to hire more medical staff to handle the problems THAT causes. Not to mention the possiblity of releasing addicts back on the streets because you drugged them, you didn't reform them.

You seem to keep treating cable TV/game consoles as a 'sole solution'. I see it as part of a system.

In the civilian world, the equivalent to an X-Box might be a trip to the Bahamas. You have to be a very good prisoner to earn even limited access to one.

It will condition them that being a sloth is acceptable. They will continue the sloth behavior after release, only turning to crime when they need/want money or goods.

The US system has one of the worst success rates at reform in the world. All evidence is that the harsher you treat prisoners, the less likely they are to reform. As such, while I support prison's capability to be harsh if a prisoner doesn't behave well, I also support it being a safe and fairly humane place for those that do.

Prison shouldn't be able retribution or revenge. It should be about reform. Do what works, we can cut sentence lengths considerably while still reducing recidivism. When keeping a prisoner runs around $24k a year(in 2005, it's $47k in CA for 2009), and the median income of US households is only $44k, the savings can be substantial.

Re:Prison should be punishment

[h4rr4r]

So you think killing innocent people is just?

I base this on the following:
1. humans are fallible
2. humans form juries, judges, prosecutors and police
3. thus any use of capital punishment will invariably kill innocent people
4. to skill believe in the use of capital punishment you must be ok with some innocent people being killed by the state.

This has been proven time and time again with people released from death row by DNA evidence. It is also used disproportionately on the poor and minorities, even when all other factors are taken into account.

Rehabilitation works, it only works if the system is designed for it. Your kind make sure the US system is not.

Re:English, motherfarker...!

[Samantha Wright]

I said it was irrelevant. Sheesh! It's not pedantry if you claim it's trivia. More like... deferred pedantry.

Re:English, motherfarker...!

[Samantha Wright]

I never suggested it did—note the "irrelevant"—I was just being a purveyor of useless trivia.

Re:English, motherfarker...!

[cheekyjohnson]

It's easier to say and understand.

Really? It doesn't even make a difference to me. I can easily understand what someone is talking about either way. Using "an" in that way does sound strange to me, but I suspect it is because I'm not used to it.

Re:English, motherfarker...!

[Samantha Wright]

I was gunning for a "+1, Uselessly Informative" mod. It was definitely a poorly-edited summary!

Re:English, motherfarker...!

[Samantha Wright]

Karma whoring is always in-style.

Re:English, motherfarker...!

[anomaly256]

I see the hilarity in the wikipedia article now:

An oft-cited[citation needed] but inaccurate example is..

Re:Prison should be punishment

[Nidi62]

Rehabilitation works, it only works if the system is designed for it. Your kind make sure the US system is not.

Rehabilitation is bullshit. Will some innocent people die from capital punishment? Possibly. Will innocent people die when someone who should have been executed gets released and relapses? More than likely. It's a simple, logical mathematical calculation. The more prisoners we execute, the fewer innocent people that will die.

Re:Wii

[Sparx139]

One problem with that scheme -- How do you think they'll react to blue shells?

Re:Another market...

[realityimpaired]

You think that there'd be good wifi coverage from a wifi base station in a car in a parking lot when the game system is in a concrete-reinforced-with-rebar room some distance away?

If they can't figure out how to make the wifi unusable when the PS3/XBoX/Wii is already sitting in what's essentially a Faraday cage, something's wrong with the people they pay to figure that kind of thing out.

Speaking of, they could always get a Nintendo Wii. That doesn't have an Ethernet port in the device unless you buy a USB dongle for it, so they could easily gibble its ability to get on the Internet without actually damaging the device itself. And the Wii is perfectly usable without a working Internet connection... if you run a game that requires a newer firmware on the console, *gasp* it'll install it from the game disc without having to connect to the Internet.

stupid summary

[Tom]

Ok, it appears the zombies on Halloween did eat a lot of brains.

The summary alone shows the idiocity in its own conclusion. No, prisoners can game if they want. They just have to use something else. The problem wasn't the gaming, it was the Internet connectivity.

I'm sure with a prison population as gigantic as the US has, there'll soon be a prison-friendly (i.e. no internet) version of either console. You'd not want to pass up those sweet sales, would you?

Inmates aren't stuck doing only one thing...

[Firethorn]

Criminals aren't some resource gatherer in a RTS, they aren't stuck doing only one thing during their sentence. Not even professional students spend all of their time learning. Thus my 'rewind' comment(though I should of said 'unwind').

I'm not suggesting letting them play on one for 12 hours a day. But even 1 hour a day can be a useful incentive...

Re:Inmates aren't stuck doing only one thing...

[ganjadude]

agreed, i mean i dont REALLY think GTA is the right game for someone in prison, maybe zelda or fable or...well lets be real, anything that isnt GTA lol, but they should be learning to read, there is no good reason that someone in prison shouldnt know how to read (theres no reason someone older than 5 shouldnt know how to read but i digress.)

Re:Inmates aren't stuck doing only one thing...

[Firethorn]

theres no reason someone older than 5 shouldnt know how to read but i digress

Blind, developmentally disabled (disproportionally represented in prisons, unfortunately), dyslexia, just plain stupid, etc... This is in addition to 'incredibly poorly served by the education system'.

Sometimes I approach problems from an idealistic standpoint, sometimes from a more 'practical' one. In this case, the practical problem is that prisoners are disproportionally poorly educated. This DOES present an opportunity in that by educating them properly, we can often fix the problems that got them into prison in the first place, keeping them from returning. But I'm not so ivory tower minded as to believe that we can make every entertainment education instead. Especially for a functionally illiterate prisoner - it's going to take proper classes to teach them to read*.

*Self learners are going to be very rare at this point.

consoles in jail?

[Pax681]

it's fucking prison? they are there to be punished so why let them have games consoles and such?

Re:consoles in jail?

[KlomDark]

Hey, look how stupid Pax681 is!

Re:consoles in jail?

[Pax681]

erm.... as they say here in Scotland .... what a bell-end KlomDark is

Re:Another market...

[DJRumpy]

It would be a very leaky cage. Not every wall is iron.

They actually have complaints from prison areas because the prisons were trying to implement cell dampeners. I wouldn't be surprised if they did so with WifI to, but that leads me to another question. Why the hell would a prison get an XBox or PS3 to begin with? They aren't there to enjoy themselves.

Cruel and Unusual Punishment

[DSS11Q13]

This will require him to play a Wii

Re:Prison should be punishment

[an unsound mind]

How about having some proof for your outlandish claims?

Re:Prison should be punishment

[IdolizingStewie]

If they don't understand the basic principle of cause and effect, punishment's not going to fix it either.

Re:Prison should be punishment

[j-beda]

Fear and punishment might give you a stiffy but they don't work. What we want is rehabilitated prisoners not people more angry and violent than when they went in.

Bullshit. Fear and punishment most certainly does work and works very well. Giving them an xbox360 isn't exactly punishment, perhaps if you understood what punishment is then you might understand why it works. No it doesn't work on everyone, and those that it doesnt' work on generally are not capable of rehabilitation. They do not understand the basic principle of cause and effect, you can't fix that by talking to them by the time they get to prison.

What evidence do you base this opinion on? Do places with high punishment systems have less crime than those that have more rehab focused ones? A quick search seems to indicate the opposite:

http://faculty.som.yale.edu/keithchen/papers/Final_ALER07.pdf

Do Harsher Prison Conditions Reduce Recidivism? A Discontinuity-based Approach
M. Keith Chen, Yale University and Cowles Foundation, and Jesse M. Shapiro, University of Chicago and NBER
We estimate the causal effect of prison conditions on recidivism rates by exploiting a discontinuity in the assignment of federal prisoners to security levels. Inmates housed in higher security levels are no less likely to recidivate than those housed in minimum security; if anything, our estimates suggest that harsher prison conditions lead to more post-release crime. Though small sample sizes limit the precision of our estimates, we argue that our findings may have important implications for prison policy, and that our methodology is likely to be applicable beyond the particular context we study.

Re:Prison should be punishment

[j-beda]

Clearly then, places with capitol punishment and harsh prison systems have lower murder rates than those without. No wonder there are so many Scandinavians and Canadians moving to Texas.

Re:Wii

[DarwinSurvivor]

Not as much as you might think.

Re:Prison should be punishment

[flimflammer]

I'm certainly glad you're not actually in a position to change things to your ideals.

Re:Prison should be punishment

[Nidi62]

Like I said, capital punishment IS NOT a deterrent. It is a punishment. A punishment is not meant to deter. It is meant as retribution for an act that is deemed to be outside the norms of what is acceptable. In this case, capital punishment would be the ultimate act of retribution for something that is deemed to be so far from the norm as to be completely intolerable, making you unworthy of not only continual association with society, but that you've forfeited your right to exist. Murder, rape, crimes against humanity. Hell, I would even go so far as to include kidnapping along with that.

it should read more like this...

[Gravis Zero]

An Israeli Court rejected the appeal of a prisoner who requested to have an Playstation 3 or Xbox 360 stating, "there is no possibility to remove the internet connectivity apparatus from the device because we are too fucking stupid to do so"

send it to a guy that repairs PS3s and i'll bet you they can harvest all the networking components just fine.

Internet Connectivity? Hah

[zblack_eagle]

When my father was in prison a few years ago (here in Australia) the most sophisticated console he was permitted to was a PSone. Because you could play DVDs on a Play Station 2, and that was a no no.

Re:English, motherfarker...!

[smellotron]

I don't go around saying, "Thine locks beist quite foul! And thy luck downtrodden."

That's too bad; you really should reconsider.

Re:Another market...

[DJRumpy]

This does not mean they should be granted all the liberties given to free citizens. They can make do with TV, cards, checkers, chess, reading, or any other number of 'low tech' entertainments. Just because they are not rapists doesn't mean they need to be granted unnecessary, costly, and potentially dangerous internet access.

You are equating stripping 'XBox Rights' with some sort of 3rd world terror prison conditions of bread and water rations, and 4 cell walls and a bucket to piss in.

Get a grip.

Re:English, motherfarker...!

[queBurro]

you said it was an elephant?

Re:English, motherfarker...!

[queBurro]

maybe it's ''an'' ps3 because like in a swimming pool... kertish!

Re:English, motherfarker...!

[Samantha Wright]

Do I have a t-shirt for you.

Re:English, motherfarker...!

[queBurro]

OMG! all I know now is that I ''must'' have one, cheers :)

Re:Prison should be punishment

[h4rr4r]

Except it does not work at lowering fatality rates. It kills innocent people and encourages criminals to kill witnesses.

Including kidnapping in the list of capital offenses would only ensure the victims are always killed.

Cable TV

[Firethorn]

Quite. One common figure google throws up is $280k a year for 17 prisons and 5 'community corrections centers'(jails?) in Oklahoma. Research shows there's around 25k prisoners(do we let the guards have cable?). $11.20 per prisoner, per year, paid, per the articles, by the prisoners through the use of the canteen.

That's ~$13k a facility. Minumum wage: $7.25. Cost for a minimum worker, 40 hours a week: $16k before benefits. More likely cost for a prison guard? $43k. If it removes the need for a 'couple guards', that's a 6:1 return, even if you spend a grand on a new TV each year.

BTW, the hate in reader comments was extreme. Assuming that the TVs get *any* educational programing, they probably get more education from it than what other forms would cost - $11.20 would pay for, maybe, 2 books per prisoner, or maybe half an hour of instruction.

Unplug the cable?

[mshenrick]

Unplug the cable? Unless it's a new one, but all the emtal in prisons means he probably won't find an open wifi net anyway

Re:Another market...

[Luckyo]

There is a major problem with people having been brainwashed into this line of thinking. If you ever took any courses on psychology talking about prisoner rehabilitation, you would know that the more normal the prison conditions in comparison to real life, the higher the chance of rehabilitation (and reduction of recidivism).

Of course, private industry behind prisons in US doesn't want that. It wants its "hotels" to have as high of an occupancy as possible. As a result you have massive amount of PR for "vengeance punishment of prisoners" instead of "rehabilitation of prisoners" practised in saner countries.

Re:Another market...

[DJRumpy]

Incarceration is pointless if it's pleasant. They don't need XBox. Claiming that this will allow them to integrate into society any better is a fantasy unless you can support that with proof? You are equating lack of XBox to prisoner cruelty. Somehow I don't think that jives with reality. Just because they are in prison doesn't grant them rights to demand entertainment while they are there. They are given access to libraries, television, radio, fitness facilities, various board games, etc. They have managed without XBox. They can continue to do so. Denying them such isn't 'cruel'.

Regarding private prisons, although they exist, they are not the standard. Claiming they are keeping prisoners in for profit motive has nothing to do with the XBox topic. No idea why you went off on that tangent.

PS3 Without wifi

[HalAtWork]

There are PS3 models available without wifi, why not use one of these?

Re:Prison should be punishment

[Reservoir Penguin]

On the contrary fear and punishment is the only thing that works reliably for all animals from mice to apes to people. Rehabilitation is possible but mass rehabilitation of millions of criminal minds with good success rates would require resources on enormous scale.

Re:Another market...

[Luckyo]

No, my dear successfully brainwashed denizen. I'm not equating it to cruelty, nor am I even touching the subject of it. Cruelty has nothing to do with issue at hand.

I am talking about rehabilitation. The capability of prison to make sure that prisoner will be as capable of never becoming a criminal again, and rejoin the society as a fully functioning citizen. The fact that you are unable to draw distinction shows the extreme depth of lack of understanding of the underlying issues. I'm sure that your local private prison industry has invested significant amount of money to ensure that you are this ignorant and in fact to equate these issues, and that you will remain this way.

Re:English, motherfarker...!

[Canazza]

+1 Quite Interesting

No possibility to remove internet? BULLSHIT!

[Drift3r]

Have you ever looked inside of an xbox 360 slim? The Wi-Fi "internet apparatus" is just connected via an internal USB port NOT built into the motherboard or anything. I've taken mine out on occasion, and the 360 works just fine without it. The Xbox 360 is rendered incapable of using Internet without plugging into a wired ethernet connection, which I doubt they would give prisoners access to and could easily be gummed up with epoxy anyway. With no Wi-Fi or ethernet, how the hell can it access the Internet? If it can't access the Internet, then he should be able to play the video game console, just like the pre-Internet consoles other inmates have enjoyed. Then again, the link is to a Google translated document. To summarize: 1) Take apart the slim 2) Remove the usb card 3)