First of all, this sounds like someone is playing a prank on your gf. Funny thing to do, since she has a PO Box – hard to actually stalk her from it, but funny to send the guy an original letter “from” her. Just based on the sitch as described, that’s how it sounds to me. Kind of like the old “hey, let’s sign our math teacher up for a bunch of free porno mag subscriptions!” that a lot of kids have done. I’m not saying I approve of the prank, just saying that’s what it sounds like.
Second, Guanolad – there is a website called myconfinedspace that has nothing to do with inmates, but is one of my daily visits – it’s just a bunch of pictures people have sent in – some cool, some WTF, some just plain boring.
Because, like feeding trolls, I didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of knowing he had bothered someone that much. I would have kept the letter but it wasn’t mine to keep.
Hush-hush? It’s the point of my whole rant - internet access. Whether he has direct access or not is irrelevant. I googled her name and could not find it with her home address and I put forth a pretty good effort. She does not have a Facebook, MySpace or any other online subscription of the like.
It’s not a prank or if it was someone had some official prison letters printed up. He targeted her because of her name and said so in the letter.
I get it - what he’s doing is not against the law. My point is that it should be, IMO. He is in prison. The point of point of prison is removal from society. However he is accessing the internet, it’s allowing him to continue fucking with the public. I think that’s wrong.
I think it completely depends on the offense they’ve been convicted of. Selling drugs? Maybe. Murderers/Rapists? No way. Let them feel as isolated as they deserve to be. Fuck them.
Do we have any idea what this guy did? I mean, he seems like a gangster in for something violent, drugs, or other serious offenses, but he could just be a white-collar crime type. Should we restrict those people from the internet too?
If you’re really worried about it, I’m sure that the prison officials would love to know that he’s sending unsolicited, vaguely threatening mail to people that he’s systematically found information about using the internet.
I don’t get it. If you couldn’t even find any information about her online, how do you think he did? Are you sure he didn’t just open a phone book and send letters to women at random? How would he even know to search for her in the first place if there is nothing about her online.
“Deserve” has got nothing to do with it. If they’re getting out someday, we’re all better off if they feel connected to society in general than isolated from it. Anything that might help foster that feeling, all else being equal, should be encouraged.
A “fuck them” attitude is sure to be returned in kind – spite is actually rather expensive, in the long run.
That she takes great pains not to be listed in phone books. That is why she has a PO Box. The part that freaked her out was that she recieved a handwritten letter from him to her physical address. Of course that information is out there somewhere but googling her name didn’t pull it up in the first ten pages (OK maybe not quite herculean).
I have no outrage about that. I do think prisoners should have communication privileges to some degree, writing included. What my “outrage” (and OP) is about is that prisoners are allowed access to the public via the internet, directly or through a confederate.
But he’s accessing the internet via letters posted in the regular mail. What you are saying is that people in prison should not be able to access the internet and people who know people in prison shouldn’t, either.
What everyone else is asking is “Why the hell not?”
Our dear friend Mario is having his MySpace page maintained by some friend or relative who forwards to him, in the form of hardcopy printouts, the interesting bits. He’s using it as a little piece of real estate to search for the type of Hot Chick Online who wants to correspond with inmates. BFD.
As for your girlfriend, you keep saying that he obtained her personal information and that this one dude getting her address is what set you off on your campaign to rid the world of internet-by-proxy prisoners. Of course, you have absolutely no reason to believe that he got her address online. You tried to find it yourself with extra information, namely that you knew her address to start with, and failed. And yet somehow this guy in jail, sending search queries and getting results by regular first class mail, managed to track her down out of the blue? The mind boggles.
No I’m not saying that. Well meaning relatives probably have no idea what he is doing with the information they provide him.
I’ve made my position very clear here, if your mind boggles re-read the thread. Again, there is a looong laundry list of liberties that are rescinded or restricted from prisoners because they are prisoners. I believe access to the public via the internet should be one of them. Given that these are convicted felons is that logic really so hard to grasp?
You want to keep inmates from having access to the internet in their own persons. No problem here with that, and I think it’s a good idea. It’s also the state of the matter for most inmates in this country.
You want to keep inmates from having indirect access to the internet through their friends, families, or penpals. You don’t seem to doubt that there are laws and policies to prevent inmates from harassing people from prison, but you’re not willing (or your g/f isn’t willing) to actually use the existing policies to curb this behavior. The prisons have enough difficulty policing inmate communications, and now you want them vetted for this, too? It will just be too easy to disguise. “Oh, no, officer, I didn’t get that information off the internet. I got it from the public library.” How are you going to prove otherwise? Or, “I have a note from the web page owner giving me permission to show this to my buddy.”
I don’t believe that it can be effectively policed. And if you change it to something that could be policed: making it against prison rules for prisoners to use information from confidants for the purpose of harassing people on the outside - I’ve yet to see a single reason why that’s not already against prison policies.
Given that both of the websites you have linked to are devoted to collecting penpals, I imagine that the people who are helping him “on the outside” know exactly what kind of information they are giving him and what he will do with that information. And that his help is coming from outside the penal system is precisely the point that I was making before and now OtakuLoki is making above me. What you are advocating is cutting off prisoners from the internet and also restricting the internet access of their friends and families.
Prisoners are already prevented from using the internet themselves. If not completely, as QtM seemed to imply is the case in Wisconsin, then at least partially. You provided a link that implies that prisoners can use the internet for certain purposes but that their use is monitored to prevent jailhouse lawyering. Presumably it is also monitored to prevent stalking and fishing for name address/combinations to harass.
What I fail to grasp is how we got from “some skeevy guy in jail got my girlfriend’s address” to “prisoners shouldn’t be allowed to access the internet” to “prisoners shouldn’t be allowed to access the internet and that includes access by free persons not currently in prison, too!” The first of these is unfortunate, but you both seem to be opposed to actually going through channels to do anything about it, so there you go. The second is already the case. The third is the really weird one. The simple fact is that inmates’ friends and relatives are still free persons and can do whatever the hell they want. If you’re really bothered about this letter thing, dig the letter out of the trash and call the jail and complain.
Prisoners are sometimes employed in telephone customer service. For example, I once called a state looking for a package of tourism and relocation information. The call was handled by an inmate-staffed customer service center. There is a chance this guy may have access to some information through his job, even though he is in prison. For that reason, I would really recommend bringing the issue to the attention of the prison warden. I can understand not wanting to give him the satisfaction of knowing he freaked someone out, but you don’t have to come across that way. If he is abusing information he has access to on the job he needs to know he can’t get away with it.
Is her physical address in the phone book? If not, then how do you think this guy got it? If it’s not on the Internet, and not in the phone book, do you think it’s possible that someone she knows gave it to him? Otherwise, how the heck would he have gotten her name and address?
What do you mean by this, “because of her name?” Does she have an unusual name? And what did he say that made you think he “targeted” her because of her name?
In Wisconsin, minimum-security inmates do often have work-release privileges. The State considers these felons to be low-risk enough that they don’t need security supervision while on their jobs away from their prison or camp.
It is possible that some of these inmates may be able to access the internet at work.
