Death-Row Pen Pals

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Getty Images A Texas inmate, executed Wednesday, sought companionship via the Internet before his death. Inside the death-row pen-pal business—and how felons bid for friends.

On Wednesday, Danielle Simpson, 30, became the 22nd person executed by the state of Texas this year. A few days earlier, in an interview with the English newspaper The Guardian, Simpson complained of the loneliness of his nine-year incarceration on death row, spent mostly in isolation. "Anything would be better than being here," he said.

But before giving up, Simpson, who was convicted of brutally murdering 84-year-old church organist Geraldine Davidson, had sought solace on the Internet. "I'm seeking to befriend someone of any age, race, etc...about becoming penfriends," Simpson wrote on Deathrowusa.com. "Please do feel more than honorable to contact me at your desire."

“Ladies, there’s a big recession on men because most of them are locked up, especially the good ones,” reads one inmate’s ad. “If there’s any ladies that are out there that are willing to invest a li’l time in meeting a new friend, hit you boy up.”

Deathrowusa, Writeaprisoner.com, and Prisonpenpals.com are a few of dozens of places on the Web on which convicts can connect with those on the outside. Yahoo alone has 68 groups built around contacting incarcerated people. The sites were originally launched by human-rights and religious groups who were modernizing their longtime efforts to help the imprisoned.

Today the practice has become a business. Inmates are charged (generally about $40 annually) to post a message and a photo, which they send by mail, since few have Internet access. The public, which receives an address at which to write to the inmates, can connect with prisoners for free. Most sites urge respondents to secure a P.O. box for their prisoner correspondence, and all require them to be at least 18 years old. The Web's largest is probably Writeaprisoner (slogan: We'll See You at Mail Call!), founded in 2000 by former Florida lifeguard Adam Lovell. Writeaprisoner, which also attracts advertisers such as phone-card and wire-transfer companies, draws 50,000 visitors a month, Lovell says.

Some of the sites offer some support services, including résumé writing and book-circulation programs. "I consider myself both an activist and a businessman," says Lovell. But many function suspiciously like matchmaking sites: Most inmate ads list data about height, weight, sexual orientation, even astrological sign. Prisoners often request a picture from their respondents. "Ladies, there's a big recession on men because most of them are locked up, especially the good ones," reads one ad from an inmate in federal prison. "If there's any ladies that are out there that are willing to invest a li'l time in meeting a new friend, hit you boy up."

The dating-site tone is one reason the sites have come under periodic attack by prison authorities, though legal experts contend they are protected by the First Amendment and by case law. The American Civil Liberties Union and other groups are fighting efforts by departments of corrections in Florida, Indiana, Missouri, and elsewhere to bar inmates from receiving mail generated by the Internet. "We're doing it to protect the public," Gretl Plessinger, a spokeswoman for the Florida Department of Corrections, told the Associated Press. "Inmates can have pen pals—they just can't solicit for pen pals."

But Lovell says inmates who are involved in pen-pal relationships tend to do better in prison. "It keeps them out of trouble," he says. "They have a better outlook on life."

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