From Cold to Closed: Card Decks Allow Inmates to Help Solve Crimes

A group sits together in a tight circle playing a round of gin rummy. One player, examining his hand, notices that one of the face cards looks familiar. And in this deck, they're all face cards. A little girl's picture on the three of diamonds triggers a memory. The card player dials a number and provides a bit of information: a name, a place, a date. Suddenly a kidnapping case left unsolved for years is brought out of the filing cabinets and a family gets the answer they've been searching for for so long. Another crime case goes from cold to closed.

Such is the motivation behind a new program in New York and Florida's county jails which provide inmates with decks of cards featuring information on a murder, a missing person or another unsolved crime. Since inmates, many of whom have spent a good deal of time on the area streets, know information law enforcement agents don't, they can provide helpful new insights. The cards have a hotline listed where anyone with information can call and leave anonymous tips.

The New York program was started by Doug and Mary Lyall, whose daughter Suzanne went missing 10 years ago after getting off her bus at the State University of New York-Albany. Doug and Mary were inspired by a similar program in Florida, where state prisons and county jails are on their third edition of the decks, which have lead to eight arrests and one conviction.
Cindy Bloch, case manager at New York's Criminal Justice Services, was pleased with the results, and optimistic about the future: "Prior to the playing card program being implemented, we had virtually no calls coming from correctional facilities," she said. "We now have 40 or 50 calls per month coming in."

Doug and Mary used funds donated to their foundation, the Center for Hope, to send 7,200 decks of cards to New York's local jails.

"It just started to snowball, and we got momentum, and it took a lot of hard work, lot of phone calls, lot of foot work, but it's been worth it so far because we got it off the ground," Doug recalled.

Even inmates think the cards are a good idea. Patrick Devival, a prisoner in the Rensselaer County Jail, commented that he thinks the program is a very good idea, and he and many his fellow inmates are glad for the chance to try and do some good "even though we're on this side of the fence".