Do you think an entity like Fluther would be good for those in prison?

Yes. That would be nice, as long as they each received one I.P. address per convict then I’m fine with it.

What makes you think they are isolated? Isolation would be a lot better then sharing a dorm with 100 guys like most of them do.

That is hard to say. I believe that there are two types of prisoners, the ones that don’t belong in jail like those there on minor drug charges, the other type should never be released back into society because they are murderous and a constant danger to society. The last thing I want is for the latter group to have access to the Internet. I don’t care what they have to say and never want to hear from them.

@johnpowell I mean isolated from society.

Also, I think about when my kids were younger and I found Marijuana growing in the gutters on our garage. Oy Vay! Nice kids, professionals now, but what if?

I would rather play basketball with a actual person then bullshit about what your favorite ice cream is here.

@XOIIO ??? Any who how, my kids had one stalk of Marijuana growing, but it was illegal. There are people in prisons for minor infractions and I was wondering if prison was a little more engaging for them maybe they wouldn’t be as bitter when they got out. But, I just judge the by the prison in Auburn New York that friends from the Unitarian Church volunteered at.

No. Prison is prison not a Holiday Inn with Wifi connections.

Prisoners already have access to cellphones and make obscene phone calls to people unknown.

Just think what they would do in a Fluther-type situation.

Prisoners do not need any connection to the internet. This is is how some of them arrived in prision in the first place.

I think opportunities for self-improvement, ethically/philosophically would do the prisoners good. But perhaps not open access to the internet. There have to be some consequences to one’s actions (not that I necessarily agree of that method’s efficacy). Giving them full access to time-wasting pleasure-seeking resources would make jail indeed as per @john65pennington a vacation-land.

No. I stand with @john65pennington . It is too easy for them to take advantage of outsiders. I have no problem with them using PCs with Word, Excel etc, so they learn a skill. But cruising the net is unacceptable.
Being forced to write a letter slows down the process. Some of the things we share on this site are rather intimate. I know ‘everything’ is on the internet but it is somewhat limited by forcing people to have accounts.

@XOIIO Thank you for that info. There may be 750 petabytes transferred but only 1 in one billion actually makes it to the egg and that happens fewer than 1 time in 100. With that high an error/dropped byte rate I calculate 7.5 MB per shot at a rate of 2.5MB/sec. Not as fast as Roadrunner, but usable.

Since I firmly believe that prison should be a punishment, I don’t think inmates should have Internet at all.

Alright guys you win!! Hubby says I’m thinking like a hand wringing, tree hugging liberal! He just corrected it to include tree and prisoner hugging liberal.

@comity . . . it’s just the grandmotherly instinct in you :)

I thinking working on a chain gang, doing community services, picking up trash, cleaning graffiti, serving as extra “eyes” for the law, picking grapes and strawberries, washing and drying cars, etc would be good for prisoners. Free labor, not to waste.

Nah, too namby pamby & lightweight.
Cons are allowed gaming sessions if they’ve been very good & that i’d imagine, would be far more entertaining.
I like the thought I may have royally pwned a prisoner without even knowing it…lock up time matey!

Prisoners spend most of their time learning to be better criminals and not getting messed up by fellow prisoners. I doubt a fluther spot would be of much interest to them unless they felt there were people on the outside they could exploit for money, goods, sex or to run errands for them.

Prison is not just for punishment. It is supposed to also be for rehabilitation, though it admittedly does not do too well in that regard. Maybe engaging with non-criminal people on a moderated site would be beneficial. I would definitely be in favor of allowing prisoners to take online courses.

One of the reasons I frequent Fluther is because I feel lonely at times. Prisoners probably feel worse, and some deserve the chance to make up for their mistakes by utilizing the time they have in order to help others and help themselves.

I pull out this old Q of mine, because I think it was one of my better ones, mostly because of zuma’s answer, and because @comity is a newbie and has never seen it, and might be interested.

@JLeslie Wow! Thank you! People seemed more sympathetic then. Why is that? Did you write the book? How is Zumba doing?

@comity I think he has a blog? Was there a link on that Q? I don’t remember. I have not tried to follow up on what he is up to.

@JLeslie Yes there is. I’ll check it out when I’m more alert. Need that PM nap : )

My mothers ex boyfriend is in prison.
He calls my house 20 (sometimes more) times every day.
I’d shoot myself if he was aloud here too.

It really depends on the prisoner. Someone would have to make some criteria to control this. I still find the idea of prisoner + internet access to be rather weird. I wonder how @comity came up with this question :S

It’s a great question though. We should put more thought into this issue…

@halabihazem I came up with it because I’m 75 years old, have a medical condition that keeps me home alot, and all of a sudden with Fluther doors have opened, I have visitors, I talk to people from all over the world, from every aspect of life, all ages and I thought of lonely prisoners who because of drug use and maybe some other minor infractions being imprisoned, alone, and I thought what if they had something similar, not exactly like Fluther, but being able to communicate, discuss, talk with others other than hardened criminals…............................

Considering I don’t mind reading books written by prisoners (because I want to know what they have to say, even if they are prisoners), I don’t think it would be fair of me to say I’m against the idea of prisoners having a Fluther-like site to chat on. Would they actually use it, though? Maybe not.

I’ll give you an example. We have a family friend who was in prison for Rape 3rd. What did he do? He had consensual sex with his girlfriend 10 days before her 17th birthday and he was over 21. In New York state that is a crime. By definition a 16 year old is not capable of giving consent. (Even though she was more experienced than he, and had even initiated it.) He is the rapist. Everyone! Take Note of This Fact!

When he arrived at his new locations he asked us to send some money so he could get supplies before his commissary account opened. He told us to send it to another prisoner’s account which we did. He was able to get warm clothes and the things he needed quickly. Toothpaste, soap dish, ...
It took about a week for the other prisoner to start writing to us and thanking Jesus for introducing such wonderful people to him and how he needed money for a TV! A TV?! He started begging for cash which we ignored. The letters were all handwritten and he eventually gave up.
Imagine how easy it would be for him to write an email and send it to thousands of people trying to guilt others into sending money. He can do a spam-like email blast every day. And like spam there will be a small percentage of people sucked in. Not good.

We kept our friend sane by writing letters almost every day, making sure he still had his job when he got out and helping his family with the legal bills.
In case you were wondering, he does have his job and is paying us back via direct deposit from his paycheck.