Has US Chess ever considered doing something like the JTP program for prisoners? I know they have a discounted membership rate, but even that could be a barrier to some of them who might just want to try it out first. Most of them don’t exactly have a lot of disposable income. Seems like this would be very much in line with our new 501c3 focus now too.
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If there was a PTP equivalent of JTP then wouldn’t that simply be the equivalent of a $0 prison membership rate?
Or are you thinking of a one-time (or one-month or one-tournament) non-member allowance?
I could see some kind of no-cost JTP-like program for prison events, maybe limited to one event per month. But I would have concerns if it was limited to prisoners only, in part because of the Claude Bloodgood situation. I’m not sure how to deal with eligibility issues. Prison rate memberships have to go through the office, in part to ensure eligibility and in part to make sure we get deliverable addresses, since prisons tend to have strict rules on how to address items to inmates.
We have provided a group membership program, like the scholastic voucher, to allow for groups to purchase and gift prison memberships. The different is the minimum purchase requirement is, I believe, 1.
What was the Claude Bloodgood situation?
viewtopic.php?p=320909#p320909 is a synopsis
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claude_Bloodgood
Alex Relyea
If PTP = JTP, you’re probably right, although I assume they wouldn’t receive a magazine or be eligible to vote, as they would with a (prison) membership.
My initial thought was to limit it somehow, as a way to remove the financial barrier to earning a rating and playing in a tournament to try it out… a free sample so to speak (I’m not referring to rating fees, just the cost of membership). Or perhaps limit its use to once a month or quarter or whatever, as Mike suggested elsewhere, or even just once per player, period.
I won’t speculate on the programming ease or challenges of this limitation approach (this time 
), but if that was difficult to implement, perhaps putting it on the same footing as the JTP would be easier? If that were the case, I would suggest making them (prison and JTP) all one program for simplicity if possible, rather than two separate ones.
There are enough differences between JTP and what would be needed for a similar program for prisoners that they’d probably have to be separate. As with any new program, the first challenge is to make the rules straight forward and unambiguous, so they’re implementable.