That risk can be avoided by just not writing to any that are anywhere near you.
There is doubt because it didn’t happen to me. No, you shouldn’t trust someone you met while they’re in prison, but they don’t all have bad intentions.
I wouldn’t try to convince her not to write inmates, but I would caution her to set some safety guidelines:
-Use a PO Box - never give them your home address.
-Don’t send them money no matter what their sob story is.
-Don’t have a relationship with them beyond penpals.
If you just follow those guidelines, I don’t see any harm in it, and it is possible that you might do some good by giving them some positive support. In fact, I would even suggest looking to write to younger inmates who might be more open to a positive influence than someone who has a long life of crime.
Now, I’m not some bleeding heart who thinks that all ex-cons will reform if someone just shows them some love and compassion. I do agree that it is important to keep in mind that many convicts are indeed sociopaths who do not have any respect for the rights or feelings of other people. These types are literally incapable of feeling empathy, and nothing you do or say will make them start caring about other humans.
However, sometimes people who are capable of normal feelings and empathy end up in a bad situation (for example, I don’t think that black people are any more likely to be sociopaths than white people are, but yet look at the rates of incarceration for black people). You always have to keep your guard up, because the sociopath/antisocial ones are extremely skilled at mimicking normal feelings to make you think that they care and have a soul (hence why I say to never become more than penpals with one of them), but it’s not like they can hurt you through letters exchanged through a PO Box.
I definitely think that in some cases, young inmates could benefit a lot from having someone healthy in their lives to give them some support.
Tell her about the man who went to prison for several years for attacking a close relative of mine. A few months after being released on parole, he beat a woman to death. He’s back in prison, and has this to say about himself on a website that solicits pen pals:
Yeah. We’re keeping track of the son of a bitch.
ETA: And while he was in prison the first time, he killed another inmate. (My relative wasn’t the inmate – thought I’d better clear that up.)
This is all excellent advice. Inmates live to scam outsiders, lonely women are a great source of info, money, etc.
Not to mention advocates in the media and justice system, a means to aid in escape attempts, source of potential conjugal visits and so on.
A big question: aren’t there still outlets for corresponding with pen pals who are not serving time? Why the attraction to men behind bars?
Your friend should think about answers to these questions.
In my last job, I saw a lot of letters that inmates wrote to family, friends and strangers.
They were all the same. “I sorry for the pain I caused. I miss you and love you and would do anything to make it right again. Please come and see me. Please write to me because I live for your letters. Please send me some money for stamps and paper so I can keep in touch with the outside world. If you could send extra money so I could buy some snacks, that would be great. Remember to save money to support me after I get out because I won’t have a job, but I’ll get one really soon.”
The letters were much longer than that, I just papaphrased.
I worked inside a jail as a mental health counselor for a few years and now I work for an agency that deals with the forensic population. So I still work with inmates often…but not from inside the jail.
I just want to say one thing, OP: Please tell your friend that this might be a bad idea.
I’m curious about something and you would probably have the depth of experience to do some informed speculating. Just how hard does one have to work to get sent to jail? I think most people have this notion that you slip up one time for something a little more serious than a parking ticket and bammo, it’s off to the big house.
I don’t really know, but I’ve always suspected that something like that was the fairly rare exception - that there are a lot of very bad decisions not to mention other substantially criminal acts that precede the one for which a person is eventually prosecuted and incarcerated.
Which scenario would you say is closer to the truth?
edit: because if it’s the latter, I think that might change the minds of people looking at prisoners as oppressed, downtrodden folk who just need a helping hand.
It doesn’t have to rise to the level of personal danger to be a bad idea. Years ago, a guy I worked with (let’s call him “Fred”) started corresponding with a woman in prison who he met through a personal ad. We all told him it was unwise, but he was a big, tough guy who could take care of himself.
Over the course of a few months, Fred sent paper, stamps, money, and pictures of himself to his “friend”. He never admitted to sending compromising pictures of himself, but he hinted at it. She sent him a pre-incarceration photo herself, but would never say what she was in jail for. She strung him along with all kinds of other details, though.
Fred called the prison one day, thinking he could find out more about his penpal, only to be told that it was a men-only prison. Prisoner guy finally came clean and admitted that the lady convict penpal scam was a way of screwing with outsiders to entertain himself while serving 25 years for armed robbery. His final letter managed to come off as both a mocking dismissal and a sob story.
We all razzed Fred about this, unmercifully. We speculated about the whereabouts of his photos, gave him a nickname and everything. In the end, all it cost him was money, some wounded pride, and lost time that he could have used to speak to actual women.
Your friend should get some professional help in a hurry. This behavior is a sign of some serious underlying problems. People who communicate remotely with others they have never met have some serious issues. They have no idea if the the person on the other end is making up their situation, asking for money to air condition their rabbits or pretending to be a dead quadraplegic.