Crime & Punishment - Your thoughts and Ideas

After reading the post about the boy robbing an old man and recieving such a long sentence I decided to create this post...


Crime is something all of us are very familiar with, but what are your thoughts when it comes to punishment for crime?


When it comes to punishment related to crime, my ideas are radical to say the least.

Rather than leaving them in a cell to rot, I prefer the idea of community service.

I believe that criminals rather than being put in jail cells, should have the choice of doing un-paid work with a chance to reduce their sentence.

For example, a drug dealer is admitted to jail for 6 years for the intent to supply class A drugs.
He would be given the choice, to work in a factory. For a set time per week, and in a 'working jail' with other inmates.
I've already laid witnessed on errands certain inmates do like laundry, cooking etc. to help reduce their sentence.

In this day and age, cheap employment is everything, as we can see in countries like Japan, China and India. While the west is crippled by debt, these countries are having industrial revolutions.

Clearly the scale would be much smaller, but I do believe anything is better than nothing.

There are obviously many problems and limitations, cost of teaching the inmates the skills required to build/craft/create the product. Cost of food, guards etc. but most of these already factor into modern day prisons, [shelter/food/'help'] etc.

I still have a lot of work to do on this idea, and obviously this wont happen anytime soon, because a complete restructure of the prison system would both be lengthy and costly.

Anyway what are your thoughts on the prison system and crime today? Constructive criticism is gladly welcomed.

 

I know this thread isn't a "Injustice" thread or anything, but it's really hard to have faith in the legal system when you see so many bullshit cases... very unhappy with a lot of cases I have seen... This case pissed me off the most: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_Cole

Anyway, the idea you suggested would not be the best. In many cases, criminals need to be kept away and sheltered from society as most criminals sentenced to prison are a threat to society. I would be in full support for large scale industrial operations within prisons though, at least that way there wouldn't be so much money lost on those idiots.