No D&D for you, if you are serving life

I just found this news at BoingBoing and thought I should share it with you:

Singer, 33, has been a devoted player of the fantasy role-playing game since he was a child, according to the court ruling. After the ban went into effect, prison officials confiscated dozens of Dungeons & Dragons books and magazines in his cell as well as a 96-page manuscript he had written detailing a potential scenario for the game that players could act out.

Prison officials enacted the ban in 2004 after an inmate sent an anonymous letter expressing concern about Singer and three other inmates forming a "gang" focused around playing the game.

Singer was told by prison officials that he could not keep the materials because Dungeons & Dragons "promotes fantasy role playing, competitive hostility, violence, addictive escape behaviors, and possible gambling," according to the ruling. The prison later developed a more comprehensive policy against all types of fantasy games, the court said.

As I understand it the punishment is that you are imprisoned for life, so what’s the problem with letting the prison inmate play some D&D? Banning the game for him and the other inmates will probably not have any beneficial aspect. And I always thought, resocializing was a fundamental aspect of imprisonment, too. And how does D&D promote “competitive hostility, violence, addictive escape behaviors, and possible gambling”?

You can read more about this, on BoingBoing or at InsideBayArea.