COSTLY IMPRISONMENT

Some federal prisons can cost the taxpayer up to $30,000 a year per inmate
and most state prisons cost $15,000 and up. That is a lot of money to spend
on criminals.

Today's leaders think they are so smart, but in classical antiquity the
barbarian Chieftains realized it was foolish to spend the tribe's resources
keeping up people too dangerous to keep around. They saw to it that their
criminals were punished for their crimes so that the innocent could live
without fear of retaliation, retribution or recidivism.

Many people in the United States are not aware of just how much we pay for
keeping a prisoner alive and healthy and relatively content with food,
shelter, clothing and medical protection. What these men and women have
done, their crimes, shouldn't be forgotten.

In the United States, we have only 5 percent of the world's population, yet
it contains 20 percent of the entire world's prison population (and the
numbers keep on rising).

We don't think the victims and the taxpayers of our nation should support
them, but instead, they should support the nation by doing hard labor.
Instead of letting them go when prisons are overcrowded, maybe we should
bring back the old ball and chain and make them pay for their crimes.

Will we ever be able to convince our governments to do right by the victim
and punish the criminals? They think such treatment is wrong. But isn't it
wrong to commit such crimes and to come out so well ahead and even more, to
become an economic stone around the neck of society?

With the money the U.S. spends on our worst incorrigible, it could make
great investments for the future. It is wrong to take money from the good
folk to keep up the bad.