No Flight Simulator for Swiss Prisoners
August 18th, 2007A man convicted of multiple murder sought permission to buy the flight simulating software “X-Plane”, arguing that he wanted to leave his prison cell at least virtually from time to time. The request was refused by the prison authority for reasons of security: Due to the high data capacity of DVDs, the effort to search the data carrier for secret messages would be disproportionate. In addition, the authority reasoned that the wish to escape to a virtual world — such as a flight simulator — has to give way to these considerations.
The Federal Supreme Court ruled that this decision is not unconstitutional. (Decision in German is here.)