Hmmmmmmm???

As someone who has worked in a large city jail, a drug rehab program where most folks were probated with time over their heads and a social worker dealing primarily with mentally ill people I have a different perspective...

Most punishment that we now have is counter-productive... We need more leeway for judges to use more creative ideas... We also need to use peer pressure... We also need to make obeying commons sense laws sexy and cool...

I mean, Ralph gets caught driving 38 miles an hour in a school zone, pays $100 fine and goes on with his business... What we be so wrong with putting a picture of Ralph in a page of the local newspaper???

(Horrors, Boberdz, that would embarass Ralph... Do you want that???)

Yeah, I do... That works on both the "peer pressure" level and the "creative sentencing" level... I mean, the fine lets too many folks off the hook... Especially those who can afford to pay the $100...

As for prison??? Prisons should/could partner up with industries that allow the prisoners to be both "employees" and "prisoners"... This would provide for a much smoother transition once a prisoner is released because he or she would move right into a job with the same company, perhaps even "clocking in" every day and working in the prison by day... This would go along way toward cutting down on the recidivist rates while also cutting down on the cost per year to incarcerate a prisoner...

I mean, what we have now is more revenge and then we wonder why we have so much crime???

B~