Video games a hit with Oregon inmates

Flat Screen TVs and Video Games for the inmates!?!

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.

This is punishment????