D&D Banned in Wisconsin State Prison

www.bostonherald.com/news/national/midwe...home&position=recent

Our responses to reading the article:

Liz H: A D&D GANG?
Dave: I want a D&D gang!
Mike Wow (Both the exclamation and playing)
Katie: ...

Well if I'm EVER incarcerated..I'm definately not going there!

I recall this debate back in HS.  Some prisoners were complaining of not being able to play D&D in prison.  Even TSR (at the time) said this was unfair and asked fans and devotees of D&D to show their support of trying to help prisoners get their rights to play D&D.  My class had a debate about this.  As much as I love D&D and denying someone their right to play it due to persecution is wrong... I sided with the prison system and said those prisoners should be denied the books and materials.  Mostly due to the fact I felt that if you are in prison, you are there to suffer and be punished.  No books.  No TV.  No games.  No luxuries.  This included D&D in my opinion.

An amusing post in which a lawyer muses about the crimes that D & D could inspire... volokh.com/2010/01/26/what-kinds-of-crim...and-dragons-inspire/

Look being locked up is hard. I don't know more than what I see in the media and from the HBO show OZ, but that's good enough for me (beyond being a moral person) to obey the law and not go to prison.

Prisoners get tv, books, can take classes and get degree's. You really need to allow an opportunity for rehabilitation or those prisoners will simply return to society and commit more crimes. Most do.

Imagine spending years without any distraction. It promotes all kinds of mental illness, which many of these prisoners are inficted with anyway.

I'm not advocating D&D, as there is certainly a violent undercurrent to the game and playing evil or lawbreaking characters is part of the game. However I've never really felt that playing video games or any games at all promote additional violence or breaking of the law. There's so much misinformation in the media, about these two forms of entertainment (table top and video gaming) and it gets a bad rap. True scientific studies can't prove any affect of the kind blamed on them.

On the other hand, I can't simpithize with the criminals either!