Query re: Inmates and Correspondence

[GFS]

Does anyone know if inmates of asylums/mental hospitals in the U.S. in the 1920s would be permitted to send and receive personal letters? If so, would these have to be approved and/or censored by staff? A timeline here http://home.earthlink.net/~openedboo...l.therapy.html suggests that, as of 1872:

Inmates in mental institutions are allowed for the first time to write letters without prior approval or censorship. The laws allowing this are opposed by most hospital superintendents as intruding on the doctorpatient relationship.

But it's not clear to which country (or countries) it pertains, and whether it's a universal right.

If anyone can shed some light on the matter, I'd appreciate it.

Cheers,
Gary

[Roucheau]

I would say that after 1900 there was enough reforms in place that unless the inmate was known to be violent, I would imagine there wouldn't be any problem with them receiving mail or it being sensored. I've read most of the CoC sourcebooks and I do not remember any reference to mail.

[wendigogo]

Maybe a little farfetched, but here are some facts from

http://www.prisonactivist.org/crisis/plra-update.html

about Censorship in Contemporary US Prisons:

Mail violations are not uncommon in prisons. The court in Hershberger v. Scaletta (1994) held that it was unconstitutional for legal mail to be interfered with in any way by prison officials. There are prisoners in administrative segregation that are not allowed to earn money from prison jobs and therefore have no source of income to pay for postage. (UPS is more expensive than the U.S. Mail). The court held that legal mail is to be free for all prisoners. It is a well established rule that prison officials cannot censor outgoing mail by prisoners to their family members (Procunier v. Martinez, 1974) but it still routinely occurs on the grounds of internal security (Gee v. Reuttgers, 1994). There are numerous cases stating that it is unlawful for prison officials to discipline prisoners for statements they make about prison conditions in letters to their family members, yet such retaliation is a regular occurrence.

[BaroqueEvilEye]

I think you need to consider the type of institution and the regime.
A private sanatorium where the inmates are being catered for and treated at their own or a relatives expense is going to be more like a modern day health farm with considerably more humane treatment and priveleges. In such establishments any infringement of the patients rights and subsequent complaints by the patient or a relative is going to mean the loss of a lucrative source of income for the establishment -letter writing would be acceptable and correspondence could expected to be kept private.
Now consider a public institution where confinement and control are of greater priority than a cure. Here the inmate is going to be depersonalised, brutalised and made to conform. If he complains -painful and humiliating punishment until he falls in line with the regime.
Quite simply anything that makes the inmate stand out from the mass is going to be removed in the interests of "discipline" within the institution.
In practice I suspect writing equipment and materials would not be handed out because of fears they could be used as weapons. If the regime is harsh, it is in its interests to prevent such knowledge being transmitted to the outside world. If they are allowed at all letters will be rigourously censored. Any hint of ill treatment being described in the inmates mail and the privelege will be withdrawn and the inmate punished.
If you think of the classic film "One Flew over the Cuckoos nest", you will recall how rigidly the inmates were controlled, often by the simple expedient of allowing a TV to be switched off or on. That asylum was in the 1950s/1960s - the regimes in 1920s institutions would have been unspeakably harsher. What would or wouldn't you do to keep that lifeline to the outside world intact?
In game terms this makes communication from the asylum to the outside world quite a challenge - can a nurse or warder be bribed...what with? All possessions are removed on arrival. What favours does the poor inmate have to offer to get pencil and paper, and then get the message to the outside world? Assuming he does succeed, how will he know his message has been delivered? If he gets no reply then what? Complain? The rules have already been broken...does he grass up the corrupt nurse...the very individual who writes the reports which decide if your cure has progressed well enough to allow you to leave...the same individual who holds the keys to the solitary confinement cells, and who decides who goes on or comes off the violent ward? Or does he stay silent and sink deeper into the despair his environment is already inducing? Is there another way of getting a message out?
I think its an excellent question which gives rise to a whole host of gaming opportunities and situations -anyone else got any thoughts on the subject?

[phobia]

I think everything the last poster said would certainly be true for state run hospitals. Most of these (in the 20s and 30s) were little better than prisons.

If the character is being held against his will at a state run hospital, he would not be able to send a letter or recieve one either. The character would probably not be allowed to see visitors and would recieve very little treatment in the way of his mental health. (Modest physical care would be provided, infrequently, for some.) If he entered the sanitarium against his will, say convicted of a crime and the judge ruled him completely incompetent, he could expect to live out the rest of his days there.

If the character badly needed treatment however, and had the means, he would likely have checked himself into a private hospital.

At a private facility personal freedoms would not have been as restrictive overall but each doctor would have selected the freedoms to allow. Each facility and each doctor in each facility could govern how they wished, as there were few regulations to providing this service in the classic era.

He could expect at least a genuine attempt to cure his abnormal mental conditions and perhaps have therapy administered once per week.

Unfortunately for those inmates of the 20s and 30s the treatments and therapies available were generally ineffective.

I recently had an investigator in my campaign stay at Arkham Sanitarium (which does get some public funding but is a private institution.) I adapted some rules from the "Taint of Madness" supplement to handle his stay there.

The procedure I used for determining the outcome of his stay at Arkham Sanitarium is below. Understand that with average die rolls the character will most definately leave the Sanitarium with a net loss of sanity points. This is fitting, (in the 1890s and 1920s only) considering the terrible conditions of even the highest quality facilities. He ended up staying from October to March, which was actually 3 "terms" (with a low roll for length of stay, each time.) If memory serves, he had 3 or 4 points less when he left than when he entered the hospital.

I allowed my player to roll all the dice stating what each roll was for while he rolled.

I'd say: "OK now roll me a d100" and then looking at the result: "A roll of 74? that means you survived your first 2 months of stay..."

The look on the player's faces was priceless... he DID pay attention to the entire process, fairly closely, once I said that.

-------------

Vincent had a bout with insanity at the end of the previous game. This actually lasts 1d6 months.

Roll 1d6 months for length of stay.

Roll for survival:
Survival roll of 96-00 indicates he dies during his stay.
Survival roll of 90-96 indicates 1d4-1 permanent CON loss (minimum loss 0) and some type of more serious, but curable, illness.

If the other players elect to pay for additional private care Dr. Hardstrom will treat Vincent. He will get a psychoanalysis roll once per month to gain an additional 1d3 sanity points for each success. A fumble here indicates 1d6 sanity lost.

Cure Rate: 35% If the roll is equal or less than cure rate the insanity is cured. If the roll is greater than the cure rate he is not cured. This also means he loses 1d4-1 sanity points, minimum loss of 0. If a fumble then he suffers additional sanity loss of 1d6 and gains some new kind of insanity.

Release Rate 20%. If cured add +50 to the release rate for the roll. If still insane when released then he will have to deal with the full effects of indefinite insanity during the game, or he can opt to stay another term.

[GFS]

Thanks to everyone who offered input. You've given me a lot to think about - but I won't go into any more details, in case you end up playing the scenario one day.