My point is that the people who come up with such a broken system that causes so many more problems than it is even capable of solving have no business trying to make the decision to flip a burger, much less take a man’s legally obtained posessions.

As I read more, the man’s crime was neither gang or D&D related. He beat his sister’s boyfriend to death. Apparently, there were extenuating circumstances that were not considered at trial, and I think that this is the reason why laws, in general, are bad. The idea that I am not intelligent enought to decide an appropriate response based on my present situation is just insulting. I know it’s not a good idea to shit off an overpass, I know it’s not a good idea to burn down a house, and I sure as hell I know if I kill somebody, somebody is going to be mad I did it and probably feel far fewer qualms about killing me. I not only defend the man’s right to play D&D, but I don’t want him in prison. Abolish the law, then have him out on the streets, waiting for the person he whacked’s brother or something to take him out. Eventually, people will realize they aren’t solving anything and just leave eachother alone, and it will be natural(arise without the intervention of irrelevant, but accepted, mental constructs) and require no litigious bull. It is what actually works. And yes, I just called first degree homicide litigious bull. It is a sanitized term for a dirty act, the courts consider it with little regard to context in the face of ridiculously high minimum sentences for all crimes, prosecutors exploit the jury’s desire to consider it contextually by inventing(FANTASY! Maybe we should ban prosecutors.) the story of the crime when real evidence will not be considered as closely as an emotional reaction by the legal layperson, thus making the epistemological approach to judiciation(innocent until proven guilty) irrelevant, and that’s all before you even get to the prison.

So Sure. He did it. Whatever. My point is that the people who come up with such a broken system that causes so many more problems than it is even capable of solving. Deterrents don’t work, the idea of positive punishment only works if the punishment immediately follows the act, as in Antecedent-Behavior-Consequence. Also, most of the evidence says that you can’t really prevent murder. Passion crimes can’t be prevented because they are spur of the moment decisions, and I don’t know about you, but I don’t want people waiting around my house to intervene. Planned(premeditated) crimes can’t be prevented because they don’t think they are going to get caught. Compulsive crimes are the result of freaking compulsions. Only way you prevent them is if the person’s internal discomfort encourages him/her to see a professional. Which(professional therapists), by and large, are the worst of the worst if they work in prisons. Prohibition doesn’t work, god himself couldn’t keep 2 people from eating an apple when they were already happy(yeah, I know it’s a myth but it gets the point across) so removing D&D will only encourage him to play from memory, or simply make up his own game. It’s not that hard. Both deterrence and prohibition basically only serve to reasure the weak-minded that they are safe from people who probably are not dangerous, and certainly should be treated elsewhere.

This is an extension of a system where people try to manage too many people to whom they are not legitimately responsible. By legitimately responsible I mean those who have willingly relinquished control of some part of their well being in full understanding of what that entails, and not some arbitrary and unwanted so-called “right.” How is the right to have a cop handle your problems for you without being offered the choice to handle it on your own a right at all? That’s not a right. That’s just retarded. People who imprison others for any reason other than the immediate protection of themselves or those they have permission to pretect are worse than child killers by a looooong way, in my opinion. I’d rather have anarchy than be forced to pay for such a shamefully bad penal system. Gary Gygax was way better at balanced mechanics than our so-called justice system.

Anon21:
There is no “paraphernalia.” D&D is a pencil-and-paper RPG.

there are books and dice. some play with minatures also.

Most state prisons ban the games because they are only interested in punishment. The law says they also have to provide protection of society (usually temporary) and rehabilitation (rarely even tried beyond basic education). They have generally secret time limits on appeal of rules so they can say “you took too long” and suppress the case at its beginning. If the inmate gets a lawyer in time, the “order and security” excuse is used, despite the fact they offer no evidence to support the view. It is basically Der Furher befehl, wir folgen (the leader commands, we follow, the Nazi Party motto) and the courts are the followers.

Federal prisons, on the other hand, have no such problem with the games, but do with the dice. As a result, gamers use kiddie game spinners for random number generators. No prison has yet explained to me how to shoot craps with a couple of 20-sided dice!

Some German prisons use role-playing games as part of the rehabilitation. They have a much lower recidivism rate than the US. It rather reminds me of those Old Testament passages where the Hebrews conquer some tribe and praise God for the victory over the weaker enemy deities; but a couple of verses later, they are worshiping those “weaker” gods. We adopt the Nazi motto, while the Germans adopt freedom.

Devin: If only Mike Stackpole had been consulted as an expert.

Stackpole isn’t the only one who’s been working for decades to combat the hysteria. (Not that he doesn’t do good work; he does. He’s just not the only one doing it.)

Paul Cardwell, the Chair of the Committee for the Advancement of Role-Playing Games (CAR-PGa) was consulted, but his testimony regarding studies showing a positive relationship between role-playing games and rehabilitation was held to have no bearing on the reasonableness of a belief that there was a negative relationship between role-playing games and rehabilitation.

If you’d like to help CAR-PGa improve its amicus and testimony skills, feel free to look them up at http://www.car-pga.org/.

“Banned in Wisconsin Prisons”

Who thought one of the nerdiest hobbies out there could be so badass.

“D&D paraphenalia consists of numerous small items amogst which it would be easy to hide contraband of a more dangerous nature than the paraphenalia itself. Rather than force our staff to poke through these items we don’t allow prisoners to have them.”

Did they load their dice with heroine to get a natural 20 everytime?

C.

As has been pointed out, this smacks of the same ignorant garbage Pat Pulling tried to convince police officers of back in the 1980s.

All of which was thoroughly debunked in Stackpole’s The Pulling Report.

There’s just no reason for continued ignorance of this sort on a hobby that’s been around since the late 70s.

ChrisHo: More than likely someone at the prison either does not like the game, does not like the defendant, or just doesn’t like the idea that prisoners enjoy something.Then it came down to defending the position by any means.While I do not think prison should be full of flowers and bunnies, well maybe it should, this type of activity is frivolous and as such harmless.If anything it could be used as a lead in to promote math and reading, let alone management and working well with others.I would prefer prisoners learn D&D rather than lift weights.

In many prisons, control is held by the warden and the guards not only through fear, but also through ignorance. Many (I would gather, most) prisoners are ignorant of their rights and do not bother to educate themselves through the avenues available to them, e.g. prison libraries. While they should not be faulted for this, they do suffer needlessly due to this ignorance.

An intellectual hobby that not only encourages strategy, intelligence and wisdom, like chess, but also imagination and the pursuit of knowledge is highly dangerous to the status quo of the prison system. I highly doubt anyone at the prison worried about a bunch of inmates yelling “MAGIC MISSILE!!” at one another. On the other hand, if whole “gangs” of inmates are burying their heads in books authored by people smarter than the warden, written in words the prison guards probably can’t pronounce, let alone understand, and the “gangs” are doing this cooperatively, it does raise a concern, albeit a legally irrelevant one.

So it’s no surprise that the Prison was so adamant about prohibiting D&D in the prison. Everyone who has ever been in a position of dictatorial power knows that knowledge is the most dangerous weapon your subject can have.

In this case, it wasn’t just the inmates who lacked knowledge, it was also Singer’s attorney, who, at least from the rendition of the case on this website, had no f*cking clue what he/she was doing.

Also, in response to

legionofmarduk: To anyone it may concern,http://www.petitiononline.com/d20d12d8/the only way to try and make a difference it to build media support for a review of the ruling.The above link is an online petition.I know there are several hundreds of thousands of gamers and former gamers who may sign it and send a message.Please, take some seconds of your day to help strike a blow against a demeaning and degrading view of what prison life should be.

If you want your petition to be taken seriously, 1) write it to the appropriate parties (perhaps the media, as opposed to our country’s Commander-in-Chief), 2) capitalize the words that need to be capitalized, e.g. “United States” and “U.S. Constitution,” and 3) proofread for professionalism and grammar.

The Curmudgeonly Ex-Clerk: I was not predisposed to view the Seventh Circuit’s decision with favor; the gang-related angle seems particularly dubious. But “Singer was sentenced to life in prison in 2002 after being found guilty of first-degree intentional homicide in the killing of his sister’s boyfriend. The man was bludgeoned to death with a sledgehammer.” Apart from Singer not being the most sympathetic plaintiff, concerns that D&D arguably might not be conducive to Singer’s rehabilitation and/or peaceful coexistence with his fellow inmates and the guards do not seem outlandish to me. D&D undeniably can place a strong emphasis on problem-solving through in-game/fantasy violence. I think this gives the prison officials all the rational basis that they likely need, given that they banned the game in part because of their judgment that it promoted competitive hostility and violence. I’m not sure I would have made the same choice as these prison officials, but this application of the rational basis test does not seem ridiculous to me. I think readers have to bear in mind that we are not dealing with average role-players in conventional circumstances here, but rather folks antisocial enough to have landed significant prison sentences (in this case for a very violent crime).

i concur. but it seems a little hinky that the judicial officials need to wrap the ‘adjustment’ in terms like gang-related, instead of “that it promoted competitive hostility and violence”. The word ‘gang’ presumes that role-playing groups are out for a collective good – when (at least from my perspective) most players are out for their own [characters'] good.

http://www.petitiononline.com/d20d12d8/

the only way to try and make a difference it to build media support for a review of the ruling.

The above link is an online petition.

I know there are several hundreds of thousands of gamers and former gamers who may sign it and send a message.

Please, take some seconds of your day to help strike a blow against a demeaning and degrading view of what prison life should be.

It’s like the Far Side cartoon in which the damned are laboring away in Hell. They’re all miserable, of course, except for one fellow pushing a wheelbarrow and whistling a merry tune. One devil-guard says to another: I don’t think we’re getting through to him.

1. The game is played with dice. Dice can be used for gambling. They also have sharp edges which can be used as weapons (particularly the D&D 4-sided die.)

2. The game has a lot of little pieces and parephenalia (including the dice and the bags used to hold them) which can be used to conceal contraband.

3. The game is fun, so fun that it can make people want to stay cooped up for long periods of time to play it. To retain their deterrant and punitive effect, prisons might not want prisoners to have too much fun or to enjoy their prison time too much.

Dear Captain Muraski….

However, in the meantime, I got to talk to a lot of small-time petty criminals. I also got to deal with a lot of petty and mean prison guards. The people who were nice to me were other inmates. The folks who were mean to me were prison guards.

Just because I was in jail didn’t mean I was a horribly bad person. But the prison guards treated everyone like trash. The best and the finest protecting our country’s law and order.

So with that little preamble, it’s important to note that prison isn’t supposed to be horrific. It’s supposed to be restrictive and confining and, since the late 1930′s, the concepts of penology involve a primary concept of rehabilitation, not terminal punishment.

Prison sucks, I can factually tell you that. Being in a cage is probably one of the worst things you can do to a person. To dehumanize and demoralize them as well constitutes cruel and unusual punishment.

Now, D&D is not a problem. To have the issue brought up, it’s important to note that Muraski was a “Gang Expert” not necessarily even knowledgeable in D&D at all.

I note that the problem was the plaintiff did not provide sufficient counters to Muraski’s claims. How would a prison inmate be able to refute the claims of a “Gang Expert?” You can’t just get on the stand and say, “YO, man, you’re FOS! STFU and sit down.”

You have to have a credible witness who qualifies as an expert in a field that stands a chance to refute the claims of opposing counsel’s “expert.”

I would think, to gain traction in a matter like this, the plaintiff should appeal. And next time, cross-examine the “Expert.”

Where do you get your information about D&D?

Have you personally played the game?

DO you have any direct experience with the game and how it relates to gang interaction, especially how it promotes gang activity?

And maybe write a letter or two to the Madison University Psychology Department or some other folks who could reasonably refute Muraski’s ridiculous claims vis-a-vis how D&D could promote gang activity.

I would like to laugh all this off, but people, if you haven’t been to jail for anything, then you have no business commenting on how bad it’s ‘supposed’ to be. It’s bad without having to be made cruel or inhumane.

As far as basic human needs and how D&D satisfies this, it is a basic human need to be socially accepted. That’s what gangs thrive on — acceptance into a group.

Which would you prefer to see when someone gets out of jail:

How many days in solitary confinement they spent and how many prison fights they were in;

or, that they got involved in a mentally stimulating activity that harmed no-one and actually promoted an interest in acedemic pursuits?

Of course the jail system is horribly flawed in the first place. We have a large group of people who have never been to jail (and by all rights should not have to ever go there) and think that the system works fine the way it is (as they have never done more than have to pay a parking ticket or a traffic citation, they have no clue how screwy the system really is) so they make these comments about how nasty it should be.

Now, granted, there are some horrible people in the world and a fair number of them are in jail, right where they belong. My personal experience in county jail told me about 85 percent of the folks most definitely belonged there and were repeat visitors. Maybe another 10 percent could have been simply treated with less punitive means in the judicial system and the other remaining 5 percent or so absolutely got shafted and shouldn’t be there at all (like my self.)

And in the end, the plaintiff may have pre-meditatively killed his sister’s boyfriend with a sledgehammer — but does that mean he later wasn’t sorry, or felt remorse — or that possibly the boyfriend might have deserved something, just not something that final?

And if playing D&D helped pass the time and to socialize in a way that was less potentially threatening than basketball or football in the prison yard — more power to him, I say.

In the end run, I don’t live in Wisconsin, so it’s not my problem. However, if my shoes were in his position, I would sincerely hope that I didn’t have to deal with the same types — or worse — that I had to deal with in a minimum security county jail — in a state run maximum security facility. My betting senses tell me that such is the case.

Also, if I were in his shoes, I would hope that there were other avenues to explore beyond simple physical exercise and watching TV.

By the way, when I was in jail, you know what the inmates most liked to watch?
Court TV, Judge Judy, Judge Wapner, COPS, CSI, Law and Order, and various sports shows. They never really watched the news, comedy shows, educational channels *(though they were available) or anything else — except for: Talk shows. All of which I abhorred.

It would be nice to consider that some folks, even violent criminals, might change and like to do something other than what the majority of the thugs that do belong in jail do — or that, over time, in a penitentiary (which means a place to do penance, part of which is to reflect on your acts, be contrite and change) — might seek to find ways to better themselves and be allowed to do so.

Your Mileage May Vary.

BTW, why one would think that D&D might engender thoughts of suicide but Call of Cthulhu wouldn’t is quite beyond me.

Inmates can get married but can’t play D&D.

I suppose we’re even…

–UU

I believe Runequest, Gamma World, and Call of Cthulhu are still permissible under the court’s ruling-
Game on!

BTW…are there ANY prison activities that don’t foster “escape fantasies?”

Dave N.: Just proof that laws or regulations can be stupid and yet still be constitutional.

If one did enough research, one could find examples stretching back to 1789.

You have to have your basic human needs taken care of…

And playing Dungeons and Dragons is a basic human need?

I’m betting that prisoners at this prison are still allowed to play basketball, read books, lift weights, watch television.

I would propose that those are all optional (except for law and religious books must be allowed). If the warden wants to allow ping pong but not weight lifting, Parcheesi but not Monopoly, or Sim City but not Grand Theft Auto, fine.

For most of us law abiding types, the cushiest prison would be horrible. I expect, however, that there are criminals from situations where a cushy prison – no 9-5 grind, no commute, just work out, play D&D, and eat – doesn’t sound too bad. We law abiding types fear prison, IMHO, mostly because of the type of people one encounters there. That same kind of fear may not exist when you, well, happen to be one of those kind of people (predatory criminals) already.

While I don’t want prisons to be Devil’s Island hellholes, should being imprisoned be more pleasant than, say serving on a submarine, where you have to stand long watches – much more than 40 hrs/week – and be studying for promotion exams, where your watches come at all hours, and where you are constantly woken up to participate in the latest casualty drill?

Kevin: The problem is twofold: (1) the plaintiff’s witnesses didn’t address the Murasaki’s claims that a D&D group is structured like a gang; and (2) the plaintiff’s witnesses were largely other prisoners or people with no experience in prison administration, and so the court felt Murasaki’s testimony was more credible regarding the needs of the prison. As such, the Court found that there was a rational basis between banning D&D and preventing gang activity, as stupid as that notion is.There’s also a third problem: Odds are good that Murasaki has never played D&D or read the rulebooks. “Muraski also has extensive training in illicit groups ranging from nationwide street and prison gangs to small occult groups and has been certified as a gang specialist by the National Gang Crime Research Center.” I’d bet that he didn’t get his knowledge of D&D from his training as a gang specialist but from his “extensive training” regarding “small occult groups.” Police “occult experts” are usually people who have gone to seminars which push Christian fundamentalism and urban legends as fact. If someone spraypaints “Ozzy Rules 666″ on a wall and you want someone to say that it’s proof that an international Satanic conspiracy is operating in your town, look for a police occult expert.

One of the main effects of the ruling is to make Murasaki and the National Gang Crime Research Center whom he convinced he was an expert and received certification from, look like utter idiots.

The judges, particularly the appellate judges on the 7th Circuit who must defer to the trial court to some extent, aren’t expected to have factual knowledge. But, an expert who is testifying about stuff he knows absolutely nothing about, in a way that is patently absurd, is troubling. If he makes these kinds of opinions about things I know about, how can the court system trust him on something that the average person doesn’t know much about.

Indeed, it is hard to see that his expertise is even properly viewed as expertise in this case. Perhaps the challenge on appeal really should have been to the propriety of certifying him as an expert witness and accepting his expert testimony on matters that went beyond the scope of his expertise.

The testimony also makes Muraski look unethical and dishonest. Perhaps, even though his testimony was credited in this case, defense attorneys in other cases can impeach his future testimony based on his testimony in this case.