Communicating with prisoners on death row??

[elenab]

Ive just been reading an article about women in america who become 'penpals' with prisoners on death row. theres loads of websites where u can get hold of a prisoners name and prison and write to them.. if you want to.

did this sort of thing ever happen before the internet existed or is it a new phenomenon?!

i found the idea intriguing but also strange... theres an example they include of a woman who actually married someone on death row who was then killed months later. why would you want to communicate with someone with the first thing you know about them being that the crime they have comitted is so bad that american law deems death the only suitable punishment!?

thoughts?x

[Alien]

It's been happening well before the internet came along.

 

Because there are some that can detract from the crime. There are some also that feel the death penalty is wrong...as wrong as the crime the offender is being state murdered for.

[chimay]

Women in the UK do it as well to prisoners both in the US and here.

[Amaranthus]

I saw something about it on Ricki Lake. The women feel the inmates can be 'changed' and they want to be their saviors. The thing that really worries me about it is that one of the women had young children and the man she had 'fallen madly in love with' had raped a young girl and had a history of violence.

 

I can understand wanting to write to them occasionally as some form of charity, but why would you allow yourself to get so close to someone like that, especially when there's children involved.

[elenab]

how did they get in touch with them before the internet? thats bizzare about the woman who fell for someone who raped a little girl when she had her own child. was she desperately lonely or a little bit mad!?

[Alien]

how did they get in touch with them before the internet? thats bizzare about the woman who fell for someone who raped a little girl when she had her own child. was she desperately lonely or a little bit mad!?

 

I think it was mostly done through the church or missions.

[Rupert_Baehr]

I think they used something called 'paper'. They made little marks on it with a pen or a pencil and sent it through something called 'the mail' (which was a bit like e-mail only much slower, didn't have a spell-checker and was subject to strikes.)

[Alien]

how did they get in touch with them before the internet? thats bizzare about the woman who fell for someone who raped a little girl when she had her own child. was she desperately lonely or a little bit mad!?

 

I think it's mostly because we see what we want to see. Women stay in relationships...as well as men even though those relationships are totally destructive, even for the children. The sad thing is that those that are vulnerable tend to move onto further poor relationships.

[elenab]

I think they used something called 'paper'. They made little marks on it with a pen or a pencil and sent it through something called 'the mail' (which was a bit like e-mail only much slower, didn't have a spell-checker and was subject to strikes.)

 

strangely enough i got that bit, but i was wondering how they actually got the names of people in prison or on death row!? especially as they are in america. imd be interested to know if since the expansion of the internet whether more communications with these prisoners are made.

i find it fascinating!

[Donkey lover]

There's a member on here (female) who has/had penpals on death row. I'm sure once she's free she'll be along to comment herself.