Ok, a flip side to this discussion...what happens to those "fall in love with their penpals" and then decide to move on. For inmates who have serious feelings for their "outside" significant others I can imagine this would be devastating to them. They seem, in matters of the heart, to actually be much more vulnerable than us out here, who can "move on". I take my friendship to my penpal extremely seriously. So, in this sense, I don't see a distinction being a friend, or being remantically involved. For many of our pp's, we are truly the only people they have. In my mind I have committed to being his friend for his entire incarceration which is 20 MORE years (he's been in for 17). So, be it friendship or more~making any sort of commitment to these incarcerated men and women should be truly just that, a commitment.

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"Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely."
~Lord John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton