Why American prisons give out playing cards with portraits of real people to prisoners (6 photos)

Playing cards, but not quite ordinary ones. On the front side posted pictures of people. Decks with similar cards are distributed in US prisons. What do you think, for what purpose and who is depicted on them? AND who knows English - already guessed ...





In 2005, a Florida cop named Tommy Ray came up with a new method of solving crimes.

What if you create a deck of playing cards, on the front side which will include photographs of victims of unsolved murders, portraits missing people and pictures of unidentified bodies? Except photo print the circumstances of the crime. And a contact phone.

It makes sense to distribute such decks only in places of deprivation freedom. All the prisoners play cards. There is a possibility that one of prisoners, having identified the portrait, he will surely boast to his cellmates that "This is my handiwork!" Or one of the bystanders crimes, once silent, now, years later, wants tell.



Prisoners who provided details that contribute to disclosure crimes, will receive a relaxation of the regime and a reduction in the sentence.

Mr. Ray's idea was received rather coolly. None believed that the prisoners would massively "knock" on each other. But nonetheless, Florida State authorities decided to try.

And three weeks later, the first signal arrived. For the first year using cards, 3 serious crimes were solved, information about which was on playing cards. Some of the criminal cases were considered "hanging" for decades.



According to the official press release published in 2014 (i.e. in the 9th year of using the method) police throughout the country received 470 hits on the persons indicated on the playing cards. 9 criminal murder cases were solved.

The experience was urgently adopted by other states where gambling is allowed. cards for prisoners (there are 18 of 50 of them). Today, such decks are either distributed free of charge, or sold in prisons for a symbolic 1 US dollar. Use of other decks is prohibited. Each state prints its own portraits.

And what are some specific examples of successful case solving with the help of playing cards for prisoners?

For example, "Queen of Spades" helped solve the murder of a woman 30 years ago.

In 2010, an inmate at the Washington State Penitentiary reported that that his cellmate boasted about how he dealt with the lady depicted on map.

It turned out that a man convicted of another crime in 1979 shot and killed Susan Schwartz for hiding him in her house wife who ran away from beatings. The wife was silent all these years in fear, but when her ex-husband was nevertheless brought to trial, she testified. The killer received a life sentence.

Today, the general statistics on the disclosure of old cases with the help of playing cards are not published. But information is known on individual regions.

So in the state of Washington, out of 52 previously unsolved cases, one each - offender convicted (case of Susan Schwartz), four more cases - suspects were arrested and a woman identified as missing for many years.

But the absolute record holder is the small state of Connecticut. Here with 2006 to 2017 four series of cards were released with different portraits.



And today criminals are convicted or arrested in the state suspects in 18 murder cases (including one double). Two missing persons were also found alive and well - they are not themselves found, it was the prisoners who told about their fate.

At the same time, the state police had to wait a long time - the first valuable the message on the case from the deck of cards came only 4 years after launch program in Connecticut.

However, the information received does not always help to punish offender. A portrait is placed on the King of Spades (Florida) map 20-year-old student Tiffany Sessions, who disappeared without a trace in 1989.



A serial maniac, convicted to five life terms for his other acts. However, his involvement in the Tiffany case could not be proved, including because the fanatic died.

The method has been implemented in Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Netherlands. Moreover, in Australia they went further and immediately indicate the amount rewards for valuable information.



Do not count how many relatives of crime victims received at least some relief after 18 years of using this method.

But in our country this will not work - gambling is prohibited in prisons.