should prisoners have access to pornography…

My understanding (and I could be wrong, but I think that I am not) is that prisoners do not have access to pornographic material. Now that’s ofcourse tough on the chappies – maybe the authorities think that it acts as a disincentive (don’t commit crimes, because if you do then you go behind bars – not the ones that
provide drinks, mind you – and there will be no access to porn!!!). If I were to act cheeky and shady then its like saying that gabbar tells to thakur that I won’t let you meet any women and I’ll cut your hands off too – boy that’s tough, I say. Even gabbar was not so cruel – he just cuts thakur’s hands. He did not stop thakur from meeting women… Anyways let me stop this shadiness now (the adv of having a fairly private blog is that I can write such shady arguments, without too many ppl giving me shady looks the next day)…

On a more serious note, if we are saying that our jails are like reform centers where sinners go to get reformed (not all sinners go to jail mind u, some just hang around free!!!) And that we ought to treat prisoners with dignity and respect (afterall gandhi did say – paap sey grinha karo paapi sey nahi) so I think it’s only fair that we ought to provide the chappies some private time and space where they can watch porn if they feel like. Poor chaps are away from their wives and girlfriends (wags) and porn will just help them to relieve themselves of their sexual frustration and make them less aggressive and frustrated – now isn’t it one of the objectives of jails, to make people less aggressive.

I am surprised that no NGO has picked up this “cause”, it may not be the most fashionable and glamorous cause but I think someone ought to fight for this cause for the chappies in jails…

In the US, a young (and probably restless) chappie has filed a case against the state of Michigan, saying that denying him access to porn amounts to “cruel and unusual punishment”. I for once agree with the chappie and I think its rather inhuman for the judge to consider these complaints as “frivolous”. Oh come on now…

Read the below article for details –

Does Banning Porn from Prisons Violate the U.S. Constitution?

Posted by William Lee Adams

July 6, 2011 at 2:30 pm

An inmate has sued the state of Michigan, arguing that his prison’s ban on porn constitutes “cruel and unusual punishment.”

In a five-page, handwritten lawsuit, Kyle Richards, 21, claims that the Macomb County Jail is breaching his civil rights by refusing access to erotic material. “Such living conditions have been used as a method of ‘psychological warfare’ against prisoners, in order to both destroy the morale of inmates and break the spirit of individuals,” he writes in the lawsuit, adding that he must cope with “sensory deprivation” and “a poor standard of living.” He also claims to suffer from “chronic masturbation syndrome and severe sexual discomfort,” and says that pornography is an essential part of his treatment.

The Michigan Department of Corrections does allow inmates to keep pornography (with the exception of materials that depict simulated rape, sadomasochism and bestiality). But that doesn’t mean Richards has a strong chance of winning his case. “Prisons have a lot of leeway to regulate the material that comes in and out,” Michigan ACLU Executive Director Kary Moss told the Detroit News. Unfortunately for Richards, county rules ban smut at his particular jail. It doesn’t help him that a judge has dismissed three of his previous complaints as “frivolous.”

Police charged Richards with bank robbery in January after they followed a trail of loose bills and footprints through the snow from the crime scene to his apartment north of Detroit. He pleaded guilty.