In most U.S. prisons, prisoners are allowed to play video games, but the access is narrow: simple games on locked-down correctional tablets are now the norm, a smaller number of facilities permit older consoles with internet capability removed, and every title is screened before it reaches an approved list. Whether any given inmate can play depends on the facility, the security level, and the person’s disciplinary record.
Federal Prisons
The Federal Bureau of Prisons has no regulation that specifically addresses video games. Its recreation policy, Program Statement 5370.11, encourages inmates to make “constructive use of leisure time” and defines leisure to include “organized and informal games, sports, physical fitness, table games, hobbycrafts, music programs, intramural activities, social and cultural organizations, movies, and stage shows.”1Federal Bureau of Prisons. Recreation Programs, Inmate (Program Statement P5370.11) The phrase “video games” does not appear in the document. In practice, individual wardens and facility administrators decide whether gaming equipment is permitted, and most federal facilities lean restrictive.
State Prisons and County Jails
State and county rules vary widely. A few states have allowed inmates to purchase gaming consoles through approved vendors. Others have banned video games entirely. One state banned all video games from its prisons in 2005 after inmates were found playing graphically violent titles, then partially reversed the ban years later by approving a small list of handheld games with nonviolent content.
Where consoles are allowed, access is almost always tied to an incentive system. Inmates must maintain a clear disciplinary record, often for a minimum of two years, before becoming eligible. They pay for equipment out of their own trust accounts, and staff approve every title individually. The privilege can be revoked at any time for a rule violation.
Tablets Are Now the Main Way Inmates Play
The biggest change in prison entertainment over the past decade is the correctional tablet. Companies like JPay (now part of ViaPath Technologies) and ConnectNetwork provide locked-down tablets to facilities nationwide. These devices bundle email, music, education courses, and games on one platform, and they have largely replaced common-room consoles as the primary way inmates interact with digital entertainment.
The games are modest. ConnectNetwork’s catalog includes titles like Bingo World, Moto Racing, Basketball 3D, and Fruit Blade, simple mobile-style games built to run on low-powered hardware.2ConnectNetwork. Game Center JPay tablets advertise an “expanded game selection and game store,” though the specific titles and availability change by facility.3JPay. JP5 Tablets Nothing here resembles a modern console game. Think puzzle games, card games, and simple arcade titles.
What Tablet Gaming Costs
Tablet entertainment is not free, and the costs add up quickly. Entertainment content on some correctional tablets runs about five cents per minute, which works out to $3.00 per hour at standard rates and $1.80 per hour during promotional periods. Music downloads typically cost around $1.59 per song. Many inmates earn between $0.12 and $0.40 per hour at their prison jobs, so an hour of gaming can consume an entire day’s wages or more.
Family members can deposit funds into an inmate’s account through the tablet providers’ websites, and the revenue model depends on that outside support. The tablets themselves may be provided at no charge or at a subsidized price; the content purchases are where the money flows.
Consoles Where They Still Exist
A handful of state facilities still permit traditional gaming consoles, though the trend has shifted heavily toward tablets. Where consoles are allowed, internet connectivity is always disabled. Facilities that use older consoles do so specifically because those systems lack built-in Wi-Fi, or they require vendors to physically remove wireless components before delivery. Any device capable of connecting to the internet is a security risk no facility will tolerate.
The specific consoles that pass security review vary. Some facilities restrict inmates to hardware from the 1990s and early 2000s. Others have allowed slightly newer systems after confirming that wireless capability was removed and certified by the vendor. In at least one state program, inmates collectively prepaid roughly $10,000 from their trust accounts to bring gaming consoles into their housing unit, with each participating inmate contributing a share of the cost. These programs tend to operate in minimum- or medium-security settings where inmates have shown sustained good behavior.
Common-room setups, where a shared console sits in a dayroom and inmates take turns during recreation hours, have historically been more typical than in-cell consoles. Some facilities have expanded to allow consoles in individual cells for inmates at the highest privilege level, though this remains uncommon.
What Games Get Approved
Every facility that allows gaming imposes content restrictions, and these are enforced at the approval stage rather than after the fact. Games with first-person shooter mechanics, graphic violence, sexual content, or gang-related themes are rejected outright. Corrections staff review each title before it reaches an approved list, and inmates can only purchase games that appear on that list.
Titles that tend to pass review are sports games, puzzle games, farming or life simulators, and educational software. In one well-documented program, facility officials rejected 16 proposed titles because they involved shooter-style gameplay or depicted sexual violence, while approving sports and strategy titles. Another state’s approved list consisted of just 11 handheld game cartridges, all with nonviolent, E-rated content. Screening is conservative by design, because a single controversial title can generate enough public backlash to shut down an entire program.
Why Facilities Allow Gaming at All
Corrections professionals who support gaming access rarely frame it as a kindness to inmates. They frame it as a management tool. Facilities with large idle populations face higher rates of violence, property destruction, and staff confrontations. Structured recreation, including gaming, gives inmates something to lose if they misbehave, which is one of the more effective behavioral levers available to staff.
Earned-privilege systems work on this principle. An inmate who has spent months earning console access or building up a tablet library has a concrete stake in maintaining good conduct. Revoking that access hurts in a way that adding restrictions to an already restricted life sometimes does not. This is why gaming programs tend to survive even in politically hostile environments.
Some programs go further and use gaming as active rehabilitation. At least one program brings game design coursework into correctional facilities, teaching skills in interactivity, problem-solving, and artistic expression. The logic is practical: game design is a growing industry, and graduates with real skills are more likely to find work after release. Sustained employment is one of the strongest predictors of whether someone stays out of prison.