Prisons can restrict the rights of inmates to nerd out, a federal appeals court has found.
In an opinion issued on Monday , a three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit rejected the claims in a lawsuit challenging a ban on the game Dungeons & Dragons by the Waupun Correctional Institution in Wisconsin.
Prison officials said they had banned the game at the recommendation of the prison’s specialist on gangs, who said it could lead to gang behavior and fantasies about escape.
Let the murderers and rapists rot w/o their D&D?
Or, let them play their "escapist" game?
It would/will be overturned by the USSC if it is appealed:
The Supreme Court announced the standard under which it would review the constitutionality of prison regulations in Turner v. Safley, a case involving a challenge to a complete prohibition on inmate marriage. As noted earlier, a prison regulation is constitutional if it is reasonably related to legitimate penological objectives. Under this standard, courts have upheld regulations based on the consideration of certain factors:
1- Is there a valid, rational connection between the prison regulation and the legitimate governmental interest put forward to justify it?
2- Are there alternative means of exercising the asserted right that remain open to inmates?
3- How great a negative impact will accommodating the inmates' rights have on guards, other inmates, and on the allocation of prison resources?
Courts will consider the existence of obvious and easy alternatives to a challenged regulation as evidence of a regulation's arbitrariness.
Clearly there is no "rational" connection, there are alternative means if any other games are allowed, such as chess which teaches basic military strategy, and there is no negative impact on guards or other inmates, nor to the allocation of prison resources.
I agree. This is based in religious intolerance, imho. And, who knows, maybe the RPG industry will help pony up some legal help as they're going to lose sales because of this.
