Isn’t This Special … Death Row Inmate’s Web Pages on MySpace.com … Just Call it “Conmunication”

Usually we are concerned about sexual predators on line and the issue of potential interaction when children and teens are on MySpace. Even adults can be lured into terrible situations as well.  One never knows who they may be talking with on the social network.

Well this one goes one better. With all the worry of possible and potential criminal being on MySpace … now we have actual convicted criminals on the popular social networking internet site. Just how much interaction and knowledge of users on MySpace do these death row inamtes get passed to them?  

Texas death row inmates now have web-pages on MySpace. There comes a point in time where one needs to just say, ENOUGH! Although death row inmates do not have access to the internet, others are creating the pages for them. There is no way a death row inmate or any iamte should be allowed the same right. They forfeited those rights long ago. Unbelievable that this is the use and is actually allowed by MySpace.

Crime victim advocates are upset that at least 30 Texas death row inmates have had pages on the popular Internet site MySpace created for them.

“I think you ought to draw the line somewhere,” said Andy Kahan, director of the crime victims office for Houston Mayor Bill White.

Kahan recently sent an e-mail to MySpace, asking the site to reconsider having pages created and maintained for convicted criminals, particularly murderers.

“Is it within your policy to allow the glorification of killers by giving them a platform to influence young minds?” Kahan wrote. “Are there specific guidelines within MySpace that would prohibit giving convicted felons a platform for all the world to see?”

MySpace officials did not respond to Kahan’s e-mail and did not immediately return a telephone call from The Associated Press on Saturday. (Houston Chronicle)

When one commits an act so heinous that one winds up on death row, they should lose certain right. To inform people about your case as a form of information is drastically different that creating a social web page so that people will send you letters. The world as a whole does not care whether a death row inmate has a sense of humor, is lonely or is board. I can guarantee you the family of the person you killed to get your death row status is in a much worse position. MySpace needs to figure out what they wish to embrace and if MySpace has a conscious or a soul.

The inmates detail their personalities, likes and dislikes, just as others do on the Web site.

“I think I’m a pretty funny guy. I have a wacked sense of humor,” writes Randy Halprin, who was convicted in the 2000 shooting death of an Irving police officer. “I can be a big kid at heart. I’m a hopeless (and I mean HOPELESS) romatic (sic).”

Since no Texas inmate has Internet access, they send letters, journal entries or blog postings to friends and families who create the pages and post their writings for them