Missing the comforts of home
Jail is about the loss of freedom, but for an inmate a Michigan county jail, one rule was just too much. Accused bank robber Kyle Richards claims in a lawsuit the refusal by his Macomb County jailers to provide him with pornography constitutes cruel and unusual punishment, according to the Detroit News.
In a five-page handwritten lawsuit filed in June, 21-year-old Richards of Fraser, Mich., asks a judge to let inmates possess erotic/pornographic materials along with personal televisions, video game consoles and radios. “Such living conditions have been used as a method of ‘psychological warfare’ against prisoners, in order to both destroy the morale of inmates and break the spirit of individuals,” Richards wrote in a court filing. He goes on to claim that the lack of blue materials behind bars forces him to endure “such a poor standard of living, suffering from both sexual and sensory deprivation.”
On the other hand, Richards, who is awaiting sentencing on the bank robbery charges to which he has pleaded guilty, has filed several complaints in federal court since last year, three of which were dismissed as frivolous, according to the News.
Even the American Civil Liberties Union in Michigan (ACLU in Michigan) gave Richards’ recent litigation little chance of success. “Prisons have a lot of leeway to regulate the material that comes in and out,” ACLU in Michigan Executive Director Kary Moss told the News.