I read the "fun" part of your description and asked myself whether we should be having fun whilst considering the often unjust justice system. But, getting people to think about prisons at all is already an achievement, and if that means having fun, so be it.
There are two things that every good citizen should spend one day doing: sitting in a wheelchair, and being in prison. That might change a few perspectives.
I'm at the point where I'm motivated to look for solutions and I see that so many solutions to our current problems already exist, so sometimes when I'm talking to people about the problems in education or criminal justice I forget that it can be overwhelming to see all the problems without focusing on the solutions. Maybe engaging would be a better word, but I do hope to strike a balance of learning about the problems of the prison/criminal justice system while making people feel empowered with the knowledge to change it. Also, since the point of the game is to improve things, hopefully that is fun to people!
To your second point, I absolutely agree. Something too few people think about is that we all go through varying levels of ability in our lives and an accessible society will benefit everyone at some point, and that the vast majority of people have broken some law but feel secure in the fact that prison isn't for "people like them."
There's an old wisdom that the worst shit you will ever get into will be of someone else's making. Darwin Award laureates excluded, of course.
I've been in a prison three times, as counsellor, as translator and as visitor, but never as inmate. They locked me in a cell on Alcatraz once, but that was just silly. They stopped doing it after the locks jammed one time. The problems of modern living all have an answer, whether it's climate warming, traffic congestion, viral epidemics, or government sleaze. It's rare that someone doesn't have an at least tentative solution. But no one who has never been to prison has a solution to the problems associated with the deprivation of liberty that is formulated from the prisoners' viewpoint. It's always other people who go to prison, but the shit that lands them there is not always their own.
You may know this name: Eric Allison. He was a criminal who spent a lot of time in prison. When he went straight, he wrote to the Guardian newspaper to ask if they needed a writer "on the inside", and he worked for them for 19 years. He died a few years back. If it's of help. https://guardian.pressreader.com/article/281625309254177
I read the "fun" part of your description and asked myself whether we should be having fun whilst considering the often unjust justice system. But, getting people to think about prisons at all is already an achievement, and if that means having fun, so be it.
There are two things that every good citizen should spend one day doing: sitting in a wheelchair, and being in prison. That might change a few perspectives.
I'm at the point where I'm motivated to look for solutions and I see that so many solutions to our current problems already exist, so sometimes when I'm talking to people about the problems in education or criminal justice I forget that it can be overwhelming to see all the problems without focusing on the solutions. Maybe engaging would be a better word, but I do hope to strike a balance of learning about the problems of the prison/criminal justice system while making people feel empowered with the knowledge to change it. Also, since the point of the game is to improve things, hopefully that is fun to people!
To your second point, I absolutely agree. Something too few people think about is that we all go through varying levels of ability in our lives and an accessible society will benefit everyone at some point, and that the vast majority of people have broken some law but feel secure in the fact that prison isn't for "people like them."
There's an old wisdom that the worst shit you will ever get into will be of someone else's making. Darwin Award laureates excluded, of course.
I've been in a prison three times, as counsellor, as translator and as visitor, but never as inmate. They locked me in a cell on Alcatraz once, but that was just silly. They stopped doing it after the locks jammed one time. The problems of modern living all have an answer, whether it's climate warming, traffic congestion, viral epidemics, or government sleaze. It's rare that someone doesn't have an at least tentative solution. But no one who has never been to prison has a solution to the problems associated with the deprivation of liberty that is formulated from the prisoners' viewpoint. It's always other people who go to prison, but the shit that lands them there is not always their own.
You may know this name: Eric Allison. He was a criminal who spent a lot of time in prison. When he went straight, he wrote to the Guardian newspaper to ask if they needed a writer "on the inside", and he worked for them for 19 years. He died a few years back. If it's of help. https://guardian.pressreader.com/article/281625309254177
Thanks for the tip! I'll definitely read some of his work
Here's some more writing of mine on justice - just out today. https://open.substack.com/pub/endlesschain/p/forever-hold-your-peace