Legal decision about D&D in prison today

[Lucern]

I've sat here for about 10 minutes deciding where to put this, as well as whether or not legal matters constitute the forbidden area of politics. Do I put it with RPGs, as it concerns all RPGs, or leaden the light banter in the top-most forum? This seemed the least offensive option. If I've erred, you all know what to do.

I was looking through circuit court decisions made today (I'm what some would call a legal anthropologist), and I clicked one utterly at random. It concerns a Wisconsin prison in which a D&D enthusiast had all of his materials confiscated, as well as those of his players, citing concerns of gang activity, threats to security, etc. They even took his 96 page homebrewed setting.

If you're interested in reading the decision, it's on this page, Singer v. Raemisch. It's fascinating to me to see how the pasttime comes out in legal form and in an authoritarian setting. After 10 days, you'll have to do a bit more searching. After 30, it may be unavailable without access to LexisNexus or something.

http://www.ca7.uscourts.gov/fdocs/docs.fwx

As a gamer, I see the remnants of old discussions of D&D (including hints towards the occult) as well as naive accounts of what a Dungeon Master does, comparing the role to a gang leader in a hierarchical system that must extend well outside of the game. As someone who studies people in legal settings, I also see a person trying to use law to achieve what he thinks is right (as in fair or accurate) without enough attention to dealing with what the legal contest was about. Most of the decision reads as if he gave no real contest at all to the claims, which, given better legal and scholarly aid, might have at least been a contest. Law and justice, as Derrida would remind us, never had anything to do with each other.

Mostly I'm saddened by the idea of this hobby, which has the potential to foster friendship, cooperation, self confidence, imagination, leadership, and critical thinking, so easily lost out to some pretty shaky comparisons akin to the satanism scare (a la Jack Chick comics) and violence (a la Jack Thompson). I'm also a little bit annoyed that the monolithic of RPGs was so thoroughly reduced, as if all groups of gamers play the same way. They could have been fully hack and slash gamers using thinly-veiled guards as enemy NPCs or, given the potential difficulty of having dice, it could have been about as violent as an average episode of Masterpiece Theatre.

Anyway, back to work I guess.

[Temotei]

This would probably be better in Friendly Banter.

Roland will get on this if he finds it to be too political.

That satanism stereotype is still around? Sad.

[Istari]

I understand the initial concern they had, but I seemed that they over reacted after looking in to it

[Oracle_Hunter]

Ew

When a multifactored test becomes a "threshold" and that threshold is Rational Basis, you know it's only going to go downhill from there.

Ah, well. The most disconcerting part of the opinion was the string cite of "D&D tangentially related to murder" cases - that was really adding insult to injury.

At least it's comforting to know that, as a DM, I am fostering gang-like discipline amongst my players

[Gamerlord]

I cannot find the case you are talking about.

[Oracle_Hunter]

I cannot find the case you are talking about.

Link to PDF

[Gamerlord]

Link to PDF

Thank you, I will start reading it.

[Thurbane]

It's good that prisoners are able to shiv each other, get a hold of narcotics, and sexually abuse the weak in prison...but at least that nasty D&D will be kept out of their hands!

...what a world we live in...

[Oracle_Hunter]

It's good that prisoners are able to shiv each other, get a hold of narcotics, and sexually abuse the weak in prison...but at least that nasty D&D will be kept out of their hands!

...what a world we live in...

At least they'll always have Shadowrun

[Lucern]

I cannot find the case you are talking about.

Oops...I didn't realize that the links didn't change as you click through.

The case is 07-3400.

Alternately, if you have "Opinions" set in the Recent Uploads, clicking Today or This Week will bring it up in a list.

Or yeah, ninja'd like 20 minutes ago

[Roland St. Jude]

Sheriff of Moddingham: While relevant to gaming and a very interesting topic, this is exactly the kind of religious and political topic that's prohibited, even when in connection with gaming.