Games + Learning + Society Conference Proceedings

Cities and states throughout the United States impose fines for minor offenses at every stage of the criminal justice system, trapping individuals in cycles of poverty and punishment. At the same time, almost every city has laws that punish and fine people experiencing homelessness for engaging in necessary activities, such as sleeping in public. These laws are not only cruel and a violation of basic rights but also counterproductive. Two major roadblocks to ending the criminalization of poverty are a lack of awareness and empathy. A team of designers and legal experts engaged in tandem transformational game design to create Poor Not Guilty: Fines and Fees Challenges, in which players perspective-take as someone impacted by the criminalization of such petty offenses. The challenges employ storytelling and seek to generate awareness and empathy of the systemic nature of this criminalization, as part of Street Law curriculum and advocacy supporting policy change.