Tag Archives: prison

A British prison has banned PS3 access to its inmates as it feared the machine could be used in an escape attempt.

Rye Hill prisoners were using the console’s wireless capabilities to chat to people on the outside, according to this Guardian report.

“PlayStation 3 consoles are barred on the grounds that they have the capability to send and receive radio signals as an integral part of the equipment,” said a prison spokesperson.

The Prison Reform Trust has banned inmates in England and Wales from playing adult-rated games, says the BBC.

Games are “no substitute for purposeful activity like work or education classes,” apparently.

However it’s not all doom and gloom if you’re a banged-up gamer, as those prisoners who “are demonstrably well-behaved, who commit to their sentence plan and fully comply with the prison regime” may own consoles and play kids games on it, only you’ll have to fork out on it yourselves as “no further public money” will be spent on your leisure time, says the prison service.

“Last year the government spent more than £10,000 on 80 PlayStations and 15 Xboxes for young offender institutions,” says the piece.

British prisons are clearly biased against Xbox.

By Mike Bowden