Prisoner to State: Give Me Porn

Inmate claims Michigan is violating his Constitutational rights by withholding porn

It's not quite waterboarding, but one Michigan inmate claims he's been subjected to cruel and unusual punishment: No porn.

Kyle Richards, 21, filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court claiming that he is suffering from both "sexual and sensory deprivation," and that he's been given a "poor standard of living" in prison, according to court documents cited by The Detroit News. He's in jail for assaulting a state worker, and was also convicted of assaulting a prison employee.

"Such living conditions have been used as a method of 'psychological warfare' against prisoners, in order to both destroy the morale of inmates and break the spirit of individuals," Richards wrote in a court filing. He claims that withholding porn violates his Constitutional rights.

State prisons in Michigan actually do allow magazines like Playboy and Penthouse, but Richards is being held at Macomb County Prison, which has sticter rules.

Not even the ACLU is rallying to Richards' defense.

"Prisons have a lot of leeway to regulate the material that comes in and out," Kary Moss, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union in Michigan, told the Detroit News.

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