his address currently is…
Rusty King D38967
PO Box 5242 D2 205
Corcoran,CA 93212
No guarantee of satisfaction is expressed or implied
Rated?
Alex Relyea
At least slightly better than me :mrgreen:
No, I mean does Mr. King wish to play a rated match?
Alex Relyea
I just started a rated match with an inmate in Oregon. It was set up for me by Herb Hickman at CCLA. Young guy in his late 20’s who is in for some pretty serious felonies–kidnapping, assault, attempted murder and a few lesser ones. He doesn’t become eligible for parole until 2028. Time for a good game…
I would not play a game with an inmate who committed serious crimes. Just my opinion.
Everybody has got to do what they have got to do. I certainly understand your perspective. For me, I look at it as a small act of kindness for one of God’s creatures. My guess is that random acts of kindness will be more useful in the long run in moving this person back into a non-serious crime committing perspective on life than simply shunning him. If there is that possibility for rehabilitation, it is time well spent. Sign me up.
I’ve got a slightly different opinion. I’ve been in the trenches. I was a corrections officer. I’ve seen the victims. I actually used to teach chess in a prison.
Whatever your background or motivation, as I said I ‘get’ it. I’m a JC guy, and he motivates me to react differently. It’s not necessarily the right or wrong way to approach this issue, but it works for me.
I completely understand.
I submit to you that those are precisely the people we need to work with be it with addiction treatment, anti-violence counseling, education for jobs and thinking skills and chess for the benefits of learning to accept the consequences of ones decisions, planing ahead and how to interact socially as a winner or a loser of a game.
I’ve worked in prison education, chess in prison, public school anti-violence programs as an Assistant District Attorney and as a high school teacher with at-risk youth. In all that time, both in and out of prison, I’ve only come across one person who had nothing apparent inside to work with, some goodness to find and bring out. (I’m excluding the criminally insane like the Manson types here) Unless these people are in prison for life with no possibility of parole, we owe it to society, if not the prisoner alone, to do whatever we can to help and rehabilitate because they will be going back into society and our help might just save someone down the road from injury or death.
I have a felon who I tutored in English and Social Studies who could barely play chess. He helped me start a chess club in the prison we were at. He has now been paroled, is working full time and doing a good job parenting his two young daughters. Not all outcomes are that good, but unless we make the effort we hurt the prisoner and society in the long run. I hope you’ll reconsider and help again with prison chess.
I have played correspondence chess with several inmates, including one who was on death row. While some games have gone unfinished because the inmate got into trouble and lost privileges, I have experienced no other problems. I no longer have the time for correspondence chess, but I tend to agree with Mr. Lafferty this time.
I had one opponent in a PA prison who got himself stabbed and had to end a game. Never head about him again.
I’m still curious as to why Mr. Ducharme has not indicated if Mr. King is, or wishes to be, a US Chess member.
Alex Relyea
I understand. Really, I do. I would rather spend my efforts with those who haven’t committed serious crimes. There are many more outside of prisons that need help. Does chess have a place in prisons? Absolutely. Fortunately, here in Missouri, there is an easy way to check on an inmate’s past crimes. There is a list of crimes I refuse to accommodate. Child molestation/rape is one.
Please ask Mr.King about that. Thank you.
Or Alex could look him up on MSA.
Johnny Cash?
I’m a little late to this thread, sorry.
We used to have a group of people (in the Pittsburgh Chess Club) who would go visit a state pen and play chess. This was from the mid 1990’s to maybe 2010. We went to the prison in Pittsburgh for many years, but then Pennsylvania closed it. Some time afterwards we were invited to go to the prison in Somerset, and we went there for a while.
Needless to say, all the inmates we met were in for “serious crimes.” You don’t get sent to the state prison for traffic violations. Of course, I knew better than to ask people what they were in for. The strongest player in the Pittsburgh prison, Ken Davenport, was a lifer. I’m sure he wasn’t the only one. He was, by the way, about 2100 strength.
Davenport wasn’t the only strong player there. Both at Pittsburgh and at Somerset, the number of tournament-strength players was far greater than you would expect in, for example, a town whose population included 2000 adult men. We managed to play in rated events at both sites. (Most of the time, however, we just played skittles.)
What’s the point of visiting a prison chess club? I’m sure that in the back of their minds everybody is trying to do some good in the world, but what really kept me going was that I liked the chess and the chess atmosphere. The inmates loved chess, they loved us, the guards loved us, and so on. They played strongly enough that I was challenged or at least entertained. One inmate submitted a game he had lost to me to Lev Alburt’s column! (Sorry, I don’t know which issue it appeared in, I’m not at home to look it up right now.) The first time I went to the Pittsburgh prison, I signed autographs! The guards loved us because they appreciate visitors. Visitors are good for prison morale; inmates behave better, and the whole place is saner, if the inmates have things to look forward to. Guards feel safer, and are safer, if prison morale is good. There were other visitor groups, such as AA, and they had a similar experience.
On two occasions I met former chess-playing prisoners who had been released. Once, the guy was working behind a deli counter, and he recognized me before I recognized him. I was standing there trying to decide between ham salad and chicken salad or something, and he started talking about defenses to the semi-open games! But, after visiting those forbidding fortresses, I wondered how anyone could ever get out. I’ve heard that recidivism is well over 50% in the Pennsylvania state system. And I know that chess isn’t a magic bullet to make you such a better person that you can stay out of prison. But, chess is something you can enjoy, in prison or out, anyhow.
Bruce
All that you write echos my experience with inmates playing chess. It’s a win-win for all concerned.