Is there a significant danger in launching a penpal friendship with a prisoner? I am interested to start a completely non-sexual mail-based friendship with a person in prison, mainly because personal events have turned my sympathy towards people behind bars, and I think that looking forward to letters could make an otherwise shitty life a bit more bearable for a stranger who might be very lonely. However, despite the bleeding heart, I’m not an idiot – I don’t want to put myself in danger for this. Does anyone know a safe way of going about this? Thanks.
Personally, I’d say there are lonely people in this world who deserve your attention more than convicted criminals, but that’s your decision to make.
My advice is that you set a very firm set of rules and do not deviate from them. The unfortunate truth is that the majority of prisoners are going to abuse your trust and attempt to manipulate you into doing something for them. You have to make it clear to both the prisoner and yourself from the outset that you are not going to break any rules, even those that seem trivial or wrong headed. And you have to make it clear that you are not going to provide anything more than letters. And you will have to very carefully consider what personal information you provide to a prisoner - at the bare minimum realize that he or she will share it (voluntarily or not) with other prisoners who you do not know.
Well, being a “criminal” doesn’t necessarily make them a bad person.
Jesus told us to comfort the imprisoned. My church has a prison ministry and I’m glad because it means I don’t have to associate with those guys. At least, not while they are “in stir.”
dart, are you male or female? If you were a woman I’d probably recommend against it, but I’m a father of daughters who is a bit too familiar with the stories of serial killers and tend to disapprove of pretty much EVERYTHING.
You wanna’ talk to someone? Try me. I could use an honest friend w/o any ulterior motives. Maybe it’ll turn into something, maybe it won’t. Life’s a risk. If you’re serious, send me a personal email. I’ve never been in prison, so I hope that’s not a prerequisite.
If only you knew how prisoners view penpals.
Lets say its not complimentary, more a case of a potential resource. Sure there are some lonely depressed ones in prison, but there is a reason they are lonely, and virtually always, its richly deserved.
Why not try the Army, working in all kinds kinds of places, with the possibility of being engaged in military action.
One day they will come home, and given Bush’s wars and the way they are going, who know what public mood they will return to.
One thing you might want to consider is corresponding with someone of the same sex. Kind of takes the “falling in love and being taken for a ride” thing off the table. Unless you’re gay.
I have a friend who began corresponding with a friend of a friend who was behind bars. They fell in love. He was released. They got married.
It was the single biggest mistake of her life (and she’s made some massive mistakes). He was insane. I’m pretty sure he’s dead now.
Not 100% maybe. But the odds are in favor of it. Few people just happen to end up in prison.
I’ve known some pretty strange people in my time. The absolute strangest was a woman who met and married a convicted muderer while he was prison.When he got out, he managed to spend her entire inheritance and get sent pack to prison, all in 11 months. She’s since divorced him, and now she has nothing.
She tried to get me to visit with him and one of his friends in prison.One of the few times in my life I was glad I have no government ID.
That’s an excellent suggestion.
Can I suggest (if it’s not obvious) a PO BOX, possibly in a neighboring city. Used ONLY for this penpal. Then if the correspondence stops (or the person get’s out of jail) you can get rid of the box and not have to worry about someone at the post office waiting for you to open the box. Now they know who you are.
I am with Casdave, if you want a pen pal you can find hundreds of lonely people in the military who would love a little connection with a fellow American. The risks are too great with the prison thing. Most are there justly, and got there by a pattern that is always manipulative in intent, if not successful. I vote not worth the considerable risk. As pointed out by Little Nemo, one way or another your address will be known to all. That could make you a target for other prisoner’s “outside people” asking favors, just like winning the lottery makes unknown relatives come crawling out of the woodwork. Just my opinion and observation, I have never had a prison pen pal and I have never won the lottery. I have written many letters to our ladies and gents in the service with no negative results. I would caution that negative results are possible. A lady I work with had a letter returned as undeliverable. She later found out the reason it was undeliverable was because the person was KIA. She was very distraught. There is an emotional investment, be prepared for things to go radically wrong.
YMMV
Hmm, yes I forgot to mention the security aspect.
It’s not unknown for a prisoner to contact some of his colleagues outside prison, and have them visit the penpals and force them to bring in drugs and other contraband.
The pressure they can bring to bear is unbelievable, not just on you, but also on close family, and of course they may also make money offers, usually these do not materialise, but it has been known to trap the unwary.
Its not just that they are dangerous, they simply have no respect at all for anyone, chances are, you will be held in a sort of amused contempt, and no doubt your addy will be passed on from one con to another.
The figures for mental disorders is magnitudes greater than that for the rest of the population, around 70+% have two personality disorders, and around 60%+ of male prisoners have 3 or more personality disorders.
Prisoners are at least 700% more likely to be clinically psychotic.
Trust me, I understand some folk think perhaps there is a kernal of goodness somewhere deep within every person that is redeemable, but you learn quickly that this is only true for a vanishingly small number of them, that you learn quick or suffer.
I have never understood what attracts folk into obviously abusive relationships, but the odds are very high that this will happen.
You cannot dip your toe in the water just a little with a prisoner, its total immersion or nothing, and unless you are well equipped, you’ll drown, slowly, painfully.
The prison worker has the support of their colleagues, same goes for all the other prison welfare workers, you, as a penpal, will have very little - if anything, you would be extremely vulnerable - this kind of danger is not thrilling or fun, its banal, unpleasant, and generally just crap.
Keep in mind that if you befriend a prisoner and then, after realizing what he truly is, you try to end the relationship, they can be very vindictive, unforgiving, and revengeful. And they know icky people who will do anything for money.
I think it’s worth saying that a prisoner is not alone but is part of a complex social network in which weaker, more naive, and more easily intimidated prisoners are used as bait or are coerced by more experienced and powerful prisoners. Assume that anything you write will be shared with the most dangerous person in the facility, and that that person will be trying to figure out how to exploit or compromise you. This may not be a matter of choice on the part of your penpal, but the only way s/he can avoid a beating, rape, etc.
Do you know, or have you associated with people who are, have been, or have later gone to prison? Because (aside from some low-level “pot dealer” type convicts or the rare case of totally innocent people wrongly convicted) most people in prison have some pretty several social and mental dysfunctions that make them, if not “bad” in whatever moral sense you want to define, not people whom you generally care to associate with, socially or otherwise. At one time in my life, I was by circumstances in at least passing association with people who later did go or probably should have gone (by virtue of their behavior and actions) to prison, and this is a part of my life I like to tuck away into a dark corner and not think about too much, because in response it made me act in ways I’m not terribly proud of.
And it’s not as if most felons receive anything like the kind of counselling or conditioning that would tend to correct such problems even if they would invite it. A substantial number of successful criminals have an instinct for manipulating and using other people; this is, after all, how most criminals make their living. See the peculiar case of Scott Peterson and Richelle Nice: “She says in his letters, Peterson is polite, charming and showers her with compliments.”
To the O.P.: unless you have a specific person in mind about whom someone you know will vouch for, I’d tend to avoid this for many of the excellent reasons previously stated (see casdave’s post as an excellent summary of all the reasons why this is a bad idea). There are no doubt some good, redeemable people behind bars–even ones who have committed henious crimes–but they are in the slight minority of the total prison population. I like the alternative of communicating with a soldier or sailor overseas, which is a situation that is in many ways as bad as being in prison, but in this case, by choice and with the intent of doing something good.
Stranger
Maybe you could correspond with a white-collar prisoner. Someone who’s into financial crime instead of rippin’ dudes’ faces off.
The same arguments, save for the security issues, still apply if not moreso. White collar criminals are there because they’ve the intelligence, lack of moral reticence, and often charm to get away with it. And I don’t know how much you’ve been around con artists, but just being aware that they’re tricking on you just isn’t enough; a good con will show you his trick, break down and apologize, and show you his soft underbelly while slipping your wallet out of your hip pocket. When you deal with such people you really have to have a hard-and-fast rule about saying “no” to any request that crosses the line (financially, ethically, or whatever), which pretty much precludes having an actual friendship, even via mail. At least with the guy who is “rippin’ dudes’ faces off” I know what I’m dealing with; an “honest” criminal.
Personally, I’d stay away from the whole set. That may seem (and be) heartless, but the alternative is opening yourself up to a heck of a lot of risk and/or staying perpetually on guard.
Stranger
I agree that the majority of people in prison are likely morally bankrupt and not worthy of your efforts, but to dismiss this attempt at compassion based on this fact I find disheartening …There are thousands of people in prison who got there by making one mistake early in life. How many people here have EVER driven anywhere after a drink too many? I know I have once or twice, and with a little bad luck I could easily have spent my best years in jail (and justifiably so). I imagine I’d be lonely, depressed, sick with remorse, but I daresay still worthy of friendship.
The concerns and risks mentioned in this thread are all valid. Did you have a specific person in mind, or are you looking to help a prisoner in general. I definiately agree with those that advised to find someone of the same sex…(If you actually prefer the opposite sex then I’d stop altogether, despite your conscious believe its non-sexual, something would be urging you to begin a relationship where there’s a possibility). I’m too lazy to search right now, but I have to believe that somewhere exists an outreach program that does exactly what your looking for, and assures anonymity. With research, I imagine it would be quite easy to avoid people who have commited acts of violence, hate, rape and the like.
I just disagree with the notion to avoid a cause because there is a “better”, or a more deserving one.
If you’re in Texas, the Texas Inmate Families Association might be a resource. Texas has the largest prison population in the United States and larger than most entire nations. Lots of people to choose from.