14 DAY TRIAL // Gamers can be found everywhere and almost anywhere around the world. Even though most of them can be found on a comfy sofa in their living room or at a desk while playing their favorite titles on their platforms of choice, we can also find them in prisons, as criminals who have nothing better to do.
But even though they seem to be enjoying themselves while playing with other inmates or with people online, their intentions aren't that decent, at least according to Bill Hughes, general director of Soca, an organization that fights against organized crime. He has revealed at the launch of the annual report of the Serious Organized Crime Agency that a lot of prison inmates use Internet-enabled consoles to issue orders to their henchmen who are on the outside, thus managing to maintain control of their illegal empires.
“We know that one of the issues is that if you are locked up, how do you communicate with others? And we have been highlighting the fact it is not always with mobile telephones. There is other technology used — people are using PlayStations to charge their mobile phones and are playing games interactively with others, so are able to communicate with them. The Prison Service is concerned that prisoners are using interactive games to talk to people outside the prison. Communication is the name of the game and criminals are looking to exploit new technologies.”
Hearing these allegations, a Prison Service spokesman said, “Prisoners have never been allowed access to wireless enabled technology such as that used in some games consoles. Nor would they ever be allowed access to such technology. A decision was taken some years ago that the then-current generation of games consoles should be barred because the capability to send or receive radio signals is an integral part of the equipment.”
If these statements are true though, this means that criminals are indeed keeping up with the times, but from now on they won't be able to enjoy platforms such as the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Nintendo DSi or the PSP, due to the fact that their online capabilities allow their users to communicate with others.