"Are video games flooding Canadian prisons? A jail in the Manitoba province in Canada is reportedly stocked with a healthy supply of video games many law-abiding citizens could not afford. This allegation has brought it and several other correctional facilities under increasing public scrutiny.

Officials defend the availability of the games, saying that they are typically rewards and incentives for good behavior. It has also been pointed out that the games’ content is strictly regulated so as not to allow in games with violent or sexual content. Good luck there, guys.

The information regarding the Manitoba’s Headingley Correctional Centre was acquired using a Freedom of Information request and documented by QMI Agency. Headingley supposedly has an ample 68 titles on its shelves. The games are available to play on four Sony Playstation 3 consoles, and titles include Pimp My Ride, Jeopardy, NBA2K12, and Guitar Hero Aerosmith. Suddenly, prison isn’t sounding so bad after all, and it’s not much to pay for looting my local Gamestop. I suppose prison rape is still a deterrent though. Almost forgot about that.

This is the second time Headingley has been the target for criticism. Last year, it was found that the facility housed a copy of a game in the Grand Theft Auto series. The series has included everything from the grisly murder of prostitutes (who, in an S&M twist, respond to your bludgeonings with orgasmic intensity) to the shooting down of police helicopters with rocket launchers. The hedonistic series has been the target of public criticism itself since its inception on the Sony Playstation in the late 1990s, with criticisms that it essentially glorifies violence (and it does).

A letter obtained under pressure by QMI maintains that the games must meet strict guidelines (they only allow games labeled ‘E for Everyone,’ or ‘T for Teen’ ratings), are an “earned privilege,” and must not contain sex or violence.

Nevertheless, Canadian Taxpayer’s Federation spokesman Colin Craig asks why video games are allowed to inmates while they are incarcerated. “I think it doesn’t sit well with law-abiding citizens,” he stated.

Inevitably, questions regarding the game’s funding sources have been raised. Craig argues that public funds are being used to purchase the games and hardware, while the jail defends itself by maintaining that profits accumulated from the facility’s canteen. Craig counters that the profits should be used on facility maintenance.

Some, including Kate Kehler, assistant executive director of the John Howard Society in Winnipeg, argue that game could help control the behavior of inmates, particularly in situations in which institutions are overcrowded. An inmate advocacy group contends that guards should regulate video game use.

“They know best how to manage them. If it’s something that can be used as a reward system to best manage their overflowing population, it’s up to them,” Kehler added.

Headingley did not make itself available for an interview to the Associated Press, but made a statement by email that they are not able to discuss the day-to-day operations of their facilities, and that video games are considered one of many “recreational opportunities” made available to inmates.

Other jails in Canada have also allowed video games, including a women’s facility in Alberta known as the Women’s Correctional Centre and a teen jail, also in Alberta, called Agassiz Youth Centre. These facilities have stricter guidelines monitoring content.

Criticism hasn’t only been directed towards our neighbors to the north. Reports came in back in 2006 of Umatilla, Oregon’s Two Rivers Correctional Institution, where inmates played $35 plug ‘n’ play-style consoles. One prisoner, Kodi Dodgin, remarked that he used to be one of the system’s most prolific troublemakers, but was now addicted to the space shooter Star Ally. There too, the systems were an incentive for good behavior, with prisoners being granted the right to buy them after 18 months of solid improvement.

Chinese prisons gave rise to more serious allegations when former 54-year-old former prisoner Liu Dali (using an assumed name) told the press that inmates were forced into 12 hour shifts playing online games so as to amass loot that prison officials sold to role-playing gamers around the world in a forced labor moneymaking scheme.

In the UK, it was reported in 2008 that prisons had spent roughly U.S. $432,000 on video games for prisoners, most of which prisoners then purchased themselves, but much of which were also leveraged with taxpayer money.?"

http://www.rantgaming.com/2012/09/29/games-in-prison/#ZPeKh4yjlITTtf9z.99 

Is it ok for Prisoners to play video games?

Prisoners need entertainment too. It's part of the whole "humane conditions" thing

This is fine, especially in cases where it's paid for with their own money.

if it helps to calm them down and if it helps to make it easier to handle them, i think it can have a positive effect. since i'm no psychologist and since i don't know this guys and how it changed the situation in the prisons since they have videogames i can't really say if it works or not.

but i think you have to give them something so they don't get the worst depressions you can imagine in a prison which can convince those guys to make too much shit. as more avocation they have as better it could be for the situation for everyone in the prison and not only for the inmates.

The question to ask these protestors is whether they actually want to see criminals rehabilitated, or simply summarily killed. Any other option is pointless

They're giving prisoners Cell supercomputer technology?!

If the outcome is positive, I don't see the downside. Prisoners are allowed books. Tax payers also feed them. How's it feel to work your job and put food on a murderer's table? As long as prisons don't become better than freedom it's fine. The penalty of imprisonment no matter how crappy has very limited deterrent effect.

Arent violent video games what caused these people to become criminals in the first place?


xD

I think they should have the freedom to purchase them with their own money, but no, taxpayers should not be paying for convicted criminals to have an unnecessary (though enjoyable) luxury like that, which many people can't even afford themselves.

Where do you draw the line between recreational entertainment (which is generally held to be necessary for humane conditions in every prison in the first world) and luxury? What separates Super Mario from Harry Potter?

This can probably actual save tax payers money. Entertainment is already provided in some form and on occasion. I'd reckon exercise facilities, a basketball court, or a concert cost more than a few PS3s with some games. A prison without entertainment is a catalyst for bad behavior and the antidote outside of entertainment is cruelity, dungeon style, which is unconstitutional. Prisoners need something to do less they go mad or find other none approved ways to entertain themselves at the expnse of others and their safety. This sounds like a batter and better decision the more I think about it. Rehabilitation wise it has some great potential. If a criminal finds that they love to play video games they might care less about committing crimes like they did to get into prison. Working a job to afford that new game would be a far better alternative. Sure they could commit crimes to get those games but if they get caught they will be back in prison and only be able to play Pimp My Ride for the 1 millionth time instead of Assasins Creed 3 and anything else they wanted.

Harry Potter can be screened in one hall for the enjoyment of hundreds of people for the price of a projector (likely already there) and maybe $5 extra.

A video game entertains, at most, four people at a time, and requires an expensive console and a game that can cost as much as $60.