Oops:
Inmates at the Milner Ridge jail were able to watch clear-as-day commercials on an explicit channel that was otherwise blocked by their satellite TV service, Justice Minister Andrew Swan said Thursday.
“Apparently, on that blocked channel, there were periodic advertisements running from 30 to 90 seconds,” Swan said.
“And immediately on becoming aware of this, the officials at Milner Ridge called the service provider and made immediate arrangements to make sure that didn’t recur.”
The jail officials only became aware of the problem during a Jan. 9 tour of the facility by Tory justice critic Kelvin Goertzen. About 10 inmates were watching hardcore programming in a common area, Goertzen said, and when a jail guard turned off the TV, they managed to turn it back on again briefly with a remote control.
A few things jumped out at me about this: First, were the inmates unaware that there were visitors? I realize that we’re not dealing with the most future-time-oriented people, but you’d think that this sort of thing might cause problems.
More broadly, though, is this really any sort of outrage? I mean, I get it that they are in prison you don’t want to make things too comfortable for them. But the sexual frustration of prison famously manifests itself in very unfortunate ways. It really seems to me that there are worse things than pornography. There are suggestions that pornography reduces rape, but even if we disbelieve that there is not much to suggest that it encourages it. It may not make much of a difference, it may alleviate the tension that causes all sorts of bad things, but humans are sexual beings and I think there have to be larger concerns than this.
One more thing. Here’s the opening paragraph:
It appears a technical glitch is to blame for a display of explicit sex in a Manitoba jail that aroused concerns by the Opposition Progressive Conservatives.
There were probably a lot of grins and groans in the newsroom over that one.
Re: the newsroom — it was probably an act of will on the part of the editor to not include a similar reference in the headline.
More seriously — does allowing porn in prison make the prison a safer place or a more dangerous one? There really isn’t, or at least oughtn’t to be, any other question than that. Prisoners are allowed other kinds of “luxuries” in the interests of keeping the population nonviolent, after all. And as you point out, there is precious little academic or empirical research on the salient issues, and such research as is available is inconclusive.
I suspect that banning pornography in prison is at least to some extent a relic of the days when prison was thought to be a ‘correctional’ institution, one that would inculcate good moral values into the inmates and thus re-release them into society such that they would not commit crimes again. At the same period of time that this notion prevailed, it happens that pornography was thought to be inherently immoral.
In our more modern and cynical world view, we think risible the idea of prison as a place calculated to make someone a better person. For us, prison is a place of punishment, a place of detention, and a deterrent. But not a corrective. If any correction goes on, it is for all intents and purposes self-motivated and would just as likely occur on its own on the outside anyway.
Allowing pornography would seem to lessen the sting of punishment, and thus diminish the deterrence value of prison. (But really, by how much?) It might make the prison somewhat less violent in an inchoate sort of way, or it might not, and chances are we’ll never have enough data to be able to definitively say.
Such interesting and potentially powerful issues — and it’s a shame that what it boils down to is an “outrage of the week” sort of squib on the back pages of the paper.
“More seriously — does allowing porn in prison make the prison a safer place or a more dangerous one? There really isn’t, or at least oughtn’t to be, any other question than that.”
This is exactly what I came here to say. If porn makes prison a more dangerous place, it ought to be banned. If it makes it a safer place, that doesn’t automatically mean it should be allowed (each prisoner with his/her own mansion would likely make things safer), but it should be considered. I would opt to offer it, given the reasons Will outlines here.
“Allowing pornography would seem to lessen the sting of punishment, and thus diminish the deterrence value of prison. (But really, by how much?)”
I don’t know about the rest of you, but the only reason I haven’t knocked over a bank yet is because I just can’t do without Spanktravision.
Is that a better or worse reason than that if you knocked over a bank, your invisible friend will be mad at you?
His name is Harvey, thank you very much, and he’s been very supportive of everything I do.