オレゴン州の刑務所の檻の中、囚人たちは あるものの虜になっています。
それはテレビゲームです。
50種類のゲームを内蔵した35ドル（≒4000円）のテレビゲーム機は、模範囚であることへの動機付けとして提供されています。囚人は、18ヵ月おとなしくしていれば、ゲーム機一個を買う権利を獲得します。
（中略）
2003 年に、オレゴン州刑務所は寝台にボルト留めできる、300ドル（≒3万5千円）の薄型テレビを提供。2004と 2005年に、6ヵ月以上懲罰無しの囚人 2,398人が7インチの液晶を買いました。
その結果、娯楽室で繰り返し起きていたケンカ （どこに座るか、そして、チャンネル争い）は、最近めったに起き無くなったといいます。
「談話室が人でいっぱいでも、頭突きする奴はいません」
「監房に戻って自分の見たい番組を見るだけだから。」（中略）
たとえ刑罰についての市民の考えとかみ合わないとしても、刑務所内の規律に前向きな影響を及ぼしているようです。過去3年で 収容人口がほぼ12,000から13,000以上まで増えたにもかかわらず、スタッフと収容者の間のいさかいははわずかに減少しました。
以上、読む人によって評価が二分しそうなニュースでした。
しかし、アメリカって いろいろと極端な国ですね（汗
SALEM, Ore. (AP) ― Kodi Dodgin used to be one of the Oregon prison system’s most prolific troublemakers. Now he’s only causing problems in space.
Prison records show seven incidents in which Dodgin was sent to disciplinary segregation. But now, Dodgin says, he’s been free of trouble for almost two years, thanks in part to the video games he gets to play at the Two Rivers Correctional Institution in Umatilla, where the 23-year-old is serving nine years for assault, attempted escape and other crimes.
Dodgin said nothing takes his mind off prison like the intergalactic war game Star Ally.
“You get all these weapons and you’ve got to beat the four boss men,” Dodgin said. “You kill your enemies. They let off these bubbles sometimes. You collect their bubbles, and you get all these weapons.”
The $35 video game consoles, pre-loaded with 50 games, are being offered as an incentive for good behavior. Prisoners earn the right to buy one after 18 months of good behavior.
“It’s a hot item,” said Randy Geer, administrator of the Department of Corrections’ non-cash incentives program. “Inmates want one, and it appears to be motivating them.”
Not long ago, prisoners stayed out of trouble to get time off their sentences. But Measure 11’s mandatory sentences for violent crimes ended that incentive for 40% of the state’s inmates.
In 2003, state prisons started offering $300 flat-screen televisions that could be bolted to bunks and hooked up to cable. In 2004 and 2005, 2,398 inmates with at least six months of clean discipline bought the 7-inch LCD sets.
As a result, the once-frequent brawls in recreation rooms over where to sit and what to watch rarely happen these days, officers and prisoners say.
“There’s no more butting heads because the day room is full,” Dodgin said. “People are just escaping to their cells to go watch what they want on their own TV’s.”
Geer said he isn’t aware of another state that offers video games to its prisoners. But he’s been working for three years to expand the list of behavior incentives.
“They’re human beings,” he said. “They need some variety.”
Convicts who avoid trouble for six months can participate in social groups and clubs, and can buy in-cell televisions, CD players and music from a canteen catalog.
At 18 months, they can go to hobby shops, get extra visiting hours and attend cell-block ice-cream socials.
The incentives seem to be having a positive effect on prison discipline, even if they don’t quite mesh with the public’s idea of punishment. In the past three years, misconduct reports, assaults on staff and inmate fights have declined slightly, even as the state’s prison population jumped from nearly 12,000 to more than 13,000.