Cards aim to turn convicts into tipsters

Inspired by the Most-wanted Iraqi playing cards and a program in Florida that has had success, the S.C. Department of Corrections is changing the cards they sell to prisoners from a standard pack to one that features pictures and information about unsolved crimes.

The agency says:
The decks will be sold in all 28 of the state’s correctional institutions, where they’ll be used and viewed by inmates who have lived in communities where these unsolved crimes occurred and who might have additional information key to solving them.

The hope is that once inmates realize they have useful information, the desire to do some good or get some cash for a lawyer, will provoke them into talking.

Last year, some 14,000 decks of cards were bought by the state's 24,000 prisoners.

Update September 18: Well the first news about the cards wasn't what I expected. Apparently one card has the wrong age of the victim, and another has a photo of someone who was not the victim. Doh.

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