THE WRONG LESSON

There is an obvious solution to the concerns of prosecutors, who
worry that judges may not allow them to force sexual predators into
mental health facilities once their prison terms expires. Why don't
they provide them with mental health treatment while they are in
prison?

It costs $40,000 a year to warehouse an inmate. Do the math. To
warehouse just one prisoner for 40 years costs the taxpayers
$1,600,000. If our intention is to confine these degenerates in our
prison system for 40 years with no psychological treatment, where
they have easy access to younger, weaker inmates that have no place
to run and hide, then the least we can do is take them to the vet and
have Rover turned into Lassie.

Americans spend a huge amount of money to warehouse drug addicts, but
very little to treat their addiction. Once they are out of prison
they immediately start using again, get re-arrested and we pay to
warehouse them again.

We pay a higher price for our short-sighted thinking, that focuses
more on getting tough than on getting results.

There is an old story by Mark Twain about a cat that sat on a hot
stove. He never sat on a hot stove again, but he never sat on a cold
stove, either.

Prisoners often learn the wrong lesson from their incarceration. They
believe that their mistake was getting caught, not their behavior.
They score an F on their report card for slow learners. And we score
an F as poor teachers.

Steve Goebel - Joplin