Chain gangs? Prisoners have cushy lives? Something is a privilege and not a protected right, so it can be denied for no particularly good reason? Here we see the pernicious spiritual rot that I was just talking about in action.
This 33 year-old guy is serving Life in prison. LIFE! (We sentenced Nazi war criminals to “only” 20 years in prison.) Does that mean that he has forfeited every human pleasure for the next 50 years? Every creative flight of fantasy? Every self-created pleasure because he enjoys no “protected right” to the freedom of his own mind—all because some petty, stupid thug of a guard has taken it upon himself to make his life one of unrelenting misery?
“After all, punishment is a fundamental aspect of imprisonment, and prisons may choose to punish inmates by preventing them from participating in some of their favorite recreations.” the court reasoned. It offered no evidence to support its hunch that playing D&D _might make you more inclined to violence, escape or a “gang mentality.” Apparently, nobody thinks about escaping from a straight-up dungeon, but if you add a fantasy dragon, then people do. This is pure, small-minded, vindictive cruelty.
Surely the idea that he is a “heinous criminal” justifies every every petty and vindictive cruelty, after all he did bludgeon his sister’s boyfriend. What kind of monster could do a thing like that? Well, actually, there are literally hundreds of cases brutal murders like this among people taking SSRI antidepressants like Paxil, Zoloft, Prozac and Effexor.
People don’t just suddenly grab a hammer and beat their sister’s boyfriends to death because they have suddenly fallen into the grip of some incomprehensible evil. Usually crimes like this are preceded by a long period of provocation. One (admittedly unverified) blog I saw suggested that the murdered boyfriend had been beating the man’s sister quite severely over a long period of time and the guy had just had enough. But even if he was in the grip of such an evil, does that mean he should be deprived of the pleasures of fantasy for the rest of his life?
No. One goes to prison as punishment, not to be punished. If you think that prisoners have cushy lives, you simply don’t know what’s going on. These and these are the normal punishments of prison; this is the brutal and unaccountable context in which they are administered; and this is often how things degenerate into pure barbarism.
“Do unto others as you would have them do unto you” is not a principle that applies only to people you happen like. It applies to everyone—and especially to people who have transgressed. Continually immiserating people because they have done something bad prevents them from ever coming to terms with their transgressions. Prison is already a shattering experience, it only rivets the offender’s mind on his own misery to continually punish him, day after day, year after year. It only compounds the original injustice to commit a new dehumanizing injustice against the offender. It prevents him from growing and moving on with his life.
The laws in this country have grown so punitive and quirky that almost anyone can become a “criminal.” It is far, far easier than you think. The humanity you advocate denying, the misery you advocate inflicting may ultimately be your own.
Taking away things prisoners care about doesn’t help keep them in line in the slightest, it only teaches them not to care about anything or anybody. Trust me, that is exactly the person you don’t want to run into on a cold dark night.
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