Tennis Is Serious In San Quentin Prison

latimes.com:

About 20 inmates--lifers and 'three strikers'--play for the Inside Tennis Team, created by recreation director Don DeNevi, 72. Competition comes from outsiders. The only rule: Resolve all arguments on the court.

Read the whole story: latimes.com

Comments

[tjconkster]

09:24 PM on 05/15/2010

Hmm, if McEnroe played a match at the prison, would he get shanked?

[csuciadams]

09:08 PM on 05/15/2010

They should be building roads instead of playing on a tennis team. What ever happened to "repaying your debt to society." Seems like society is going into debt paying for them instead.

[CigarGod]

12:21 AM on 05/16/2010

These guys are lifers.
You want them out on a road?

[csuciadams]

07:11 PM on 05/16/2010

It does not have to be a worst case scenario. Obviously the worst offenders, violent offenders or frequent escapees, would not be allowed outside of the prison walls, but there are many prisoners that can work. The can do labor that our society needs. Why should they be allowed to be lazy in a cell and do little to no work while "free" people slave away the day in the rat race.

If you don't work in the real world you become homeless and might starve; if you don't work in prison you still have a place to go to at night and get 3 squares a day. Something is wrong here...

[akryan]

03:00 AM on 05/16/2010

They used to do these sorts of things but it amounted to slave labor and completely undercut private business that was vying for the same contracts. Business had a legitmate argument that they shouldn't lose business to murderers.

[csuciadams]

07:09 PM on 05/16/2010

Cost, cost, cost. How is it slave labor anyway? If we are paying people to do it already, it cannot be slave labor. They would not make "prevailing wage," but they could still earn the prison wage that is normally made. How is this hard to conceive?

Are we to delay the building of vital infrastructure because there is some moral obligation to pay the highest wage possible. If roads or railroads or water pipes were built by prisoners everyone in society would benefit. It would increase efficiency and business owners would gain revenue.

[IfIonlyknew]

12:20 PM on 05/15/2010

Maybe we could have Tiger design a nice little 9 hole course for them to play on.

[Semper Troll]

03:28 AM on 05/16/2010

If wall street execs get to have them. .. why shouldn't these criminals?

[IfIonlyknew]

11:05 AM on 05/16/2010

I think the wall street execs. need to be locked up with these guys.