Isn’t that overselling it a bit? So your girlfriend got a letter that creeped her out; that sucks a little bit, but it’s a very small deal. It’s also got almost nothing to do with inmates having internet access: there are a lot more skeevy guys with too much time on their hands outside of jail than inside, and it could have just as easily been one of them (would’ve been worse if it was, in fact). It’s just the risk you run if you have a certain amount of personal information freely available online.
No, it’s not over selling it. I’m sure from the comfort of you’re not having been contacted by an inmate ‘soon to be released’ it seems that way to you but the reality is, my friend is the “scary” type who takes pains to make sure her info isn’t available on the net. It’s not just that it “creeped her out,” this guy specifically targeted her. Whether he had direct access to the net or not is irrelevant (in my mind), someone was providing him with special information that allowed him to contact her directly. You don’t see how this is a bad thing?
Obviously I haven’t seen the letter, so maybe I’m not appreciating just how disturbing it was. Given what little info we have in the thread, however, my uninformed opinion is that you may be – just a little bit – overreacting. (Sorry, that sounds bad.) Phrases like “specifically targeted” and “prey on the public” should, I think, be reserved for somewhat more dire circumstances.
Depending on exactly what that entails, yes, I agree that that’s a bad thing. Is it possible that your girlfriend is listed in the White Pages? It could be (as far as I know) that finding her address was as simple as calling 411. If some real digging was required, however, then I certainly see why she would be concerned.
I agree, so why is it so important to deny web access to inmates?
Well, it depends… What measures do prisons usually have for monitoring and restricting Internet use among prisoners? I mean, the Web is (in)famous for having a LOT of… something… something exciting… something that is generally not allowed for prisoners. And if kids can get past Web blockers, so can adults, even in restricted circumstances such as these. Even apart from that, it’s a means of communication, and God knows that freedom of communication is something prisoners generally do NOT have. Do they have guards looking over shoulders every second or something?
Well now… I’m not going to say you cherry picked your quote… but…
… it appears that they are monitored fairly closely. There’s also no evidence that this guy has internet access at all and a friend or relative could have set up this MySpace page for him.
Personally, I don’t see any reason to keep inmates off the internet as long as they’re not doing anything illegal on it.
Cherry picked his quote? He was asked to provide a cite that they can get online, and he did. Just because they are somehow (and we do not know how at this point in this discussion) keeping prisoners from lawyering over the internet, does not necessarily mean that they’re closely monitored. I’m thinking a room with a few PC’s and a guard at the door. Very far from closely monitored IMO. Qadgop may have some more insight on this.
Also, just ftr, from his myspace page: “I might not even see your pictures or responses on my webpage because of the expenses to copy everything!!! **I edited my profile with Thomas’ Myspace Editor V4.4 **” [bolding mine] Seems to me like he’s online and not going through a second party.
Anyway, I’m with Dfth on this one. No way should a convicted felon/murderer who, to me, seems bitter that he was declared an adult at 16 so as to face trial, be allowed to get online for much of anything besides checking CNN. How effing soft is this country getting when we have people arguing that these idiots should have the right to get online from prison? Wait 'til your SO gets a letter like that from a convicted murderer that you know was derived from info off the net. See if you have the same attitude then.
They might have image blocking software or something on the net, to prevent inmates from downloading porn.
There was an episode of CSI involving an inmate who was able to use AIM while incarcerated, for what it’s worth.
I think it’s pretty obvious that the MySpace page is about him, not by him, though.
In Wisconsin, state prison inmates are not allowed access to the internet.
Given the number of them that are here for internet crimes (kiddie porn, financial fraud) I think this is a very wise idea.
So far, no constitutional right to internet access has been asserted by any courts, so I don’t expect it will change.
We’ve enough to do, trying to provide adequate food, shelter, medical care, and rehab, on our limited budget.
For what it’s worth, that is usually put in by the page making software when you use a 3rd party page maker. I know it put it in mine, and I see it in a lot of others as well.
Back to just reading…
I don’t understand what the MySpace page has to do with anything in any case. It’s not how he contacted the OP’s girlfriend, right? Surely far weirder is the fact that he got her address in the first place. Any idea how that happened?
As for the internet access, it even says on the MySpace page: “My family handles all my webpage interaction since I dont have direct access to my webpage,so can you please contact me at this address [postal address follows]”. He plainly isn’t the one who put up either of these two pages, so it doesn’t seem likely that he has web access at all.
Actually, that first sentence leads me to think that someone else is posting for him and then printing out comments and pictures which are mailed to him. The bit about “I edited my profile…” is just standard attribution, isn’t it? I see that exact phrasing all over (usually on pages that are painfully ugly)- I think it’s boilerplate that gets put in when you use a third party template.
That said, I’m sorry about your friend, hypothetical- it is very creepy. I used to get random collect calls from jail and prison when I had a landline, and it gave me nightmares. I don’t think myspace is connected, though.
Is the letter definitely from the inmate? I seem to remember letters from prison are identifiable from some writing on the envelope that allows the prisoner’s account to be charged postage rather than using a stamp.
I only ask because I am wondering if this is some kind of prank played by someone she knows who has seen the web site. If it isn’t, then depending on the content of the letter your girlfriend may wish to contact the warden of the prison.
I’m sorry this happened to your girlfriend, but I have to say this is a compelling reason to keep pictures on myspace to a minimum and make sure things are not registered under her real name. If she has her first and last name available and pictures of herself at various keggers she is leaving herself open to this kind of thing. It is unfortunate and it shouldn’t be that way but it is. I don’t have a myspace anymore but when I did have it there was not one picture of my face anywhere on the site and nowhere was my last name attached to the site. I created an email address specifically for the purpose of registering for myspace so you couldn’t trace that back to me either. You can’t control the creeps but you can control how much information you give them.
Using the internet to identify and target a private individual may not be illegal, but a given prison system almost certainly has rules against it, with substantial penalties for inmates who break them. A copy of the letter (with personal info redacted) and a letter of complaint to the guy’s warden should bring the matter to official notice. A given letter might be creepy at best, but the same techniques could easily attract a young or naive individual who can be manipulated and victimized.
Even if the inmate never has personal online time, conspiracy with someone outside the system to circumvent a rule would be taken seriously.
According to this logic there isn’t any reason to keep alcohol away from inmates since drinking is not illegal.
Thanks to all who expressed concern. My friend does not have a MySpace account. She received the letter (postmarked The California State Prison (CSP), Corcoran) and asked me to check on it’s validity. It was then that I discovered his web pages. As Ragiel points out, given the relative newness of the internet, the system is clearly being circumvented.
Or maybe he just sent out a bunch of random letters to girls he found in the phone book. Did you actually read the Pampered Prisoner site? The very first line is
The ** click here ** is to send email to the webmaster. Said webmaster prints out the message and then mails it to our dear friend Mario “Pampers” Stanford. The idea being that all kinds of hot chicks will find his webpage and express interest in spending some quality time visiting his conjugal.
As for the MySpace page, he doesn’t maintain it. Somebody else does. The whole “I’m a sensitive man serving time for a crime I didn’t commit hey baby wanna get horizontal with me?” routine is bookended by
and
In other words: “Hi, I’m currently serving time and unable to access the internet. If you send me a message on my MySpace, my friends will print it out and mail it to me. If you would like to send me a letter directly you can do so at this address. Have I mentioned I am looking for love in a hard and cold world in which the Man is trying to grind me down? Por favor oprima el numero dos para oír este mensaje en Español.”
Back to the letter your lady friend got, is it really specific to her? I mean, I bet she’s a cool girl, too, but that doesn’t mean I was able to internet stalk her. Or cared to. When you say it had all her information correct, do you mean it had her actual home address and her name or that it read
What system is being circumvented? Sites soliciting penpals for prisoners aren’t uncommon, and nor are third party-operated MySpace profiles. Various jurisdictions do appear to have tried to prevent “web-generated information” from passing into prisons, but these don’t as a rule seem to have passed constitutional muster.
What’s most likely happening is that someone outside is gathering addresses for him by trawling god-knows-what listings, and passing him the list of people for him to write to. So the concern should be much less about what information about the prisoner is online, or even how the address was passed to him (since this is never likely to be prevented), and more on how your girlfriend’s address was gathered in the first place. Have you run searches on her name and related info to see if there’s a publically available listing that slipped under the net? Could it be something as prosaic as a phone book listing? To me, this is the end that ought to be concentrated on. From my first name you can quite easily determine my workplace, but I’d be quite perturbed if my home address was similarly traceable.
I suppose if more correspondence arrives then the prison could be contacted to prevent mail from him being sent in the first place (I don’t know if they’ll actually do this, of course), but it seems more likely that it’s just an unpleasant random occurrence that won’t happen again if he receives no response. Easy for me to say, I know, but given the fact he was soliciting for penpals on a now-defunct site, the likelihood that he’s just sending handwritten spam to random individuals seems pretty high. Anyway, best of luck working out how it happened.
Preview: darn you Tenebras, sneaking in before me and stealing all my points. They should take away your internet access. 
I also ate the last donut and drank your coffee. 
Dude, if this bothers you so much, why didn’t you save the letter, copy it to the prison management, and complain about it? Inquire about what type of access the inmate has to the Internet or other sources of information.
Also your girlfriend should have saved the letter in case she needs it for a future stalking case.
You have been very hush-hush on how you think he got her address… Have you Googled her name, and does her address come up in the results anywhere? Is her address in the phone book? Does she have a Facebook page?