jail time versus community service and rehabition

I think first of all the whole jail and prison management is way off! I think all prisons should be selfsubstaining..meaning that they should grow their own food and build or make what they need ..the things they can not make,grow,build on site should be purchased with the profits from the things they do make,grow,build..I find it so unfair that we(taxpayers) should have to pay for color tvs,food,clothing,housing etc for someone that is being "punished".. In both USA and Canada we have homeless and hungry...while we provide well for criminals! whewwww...as I step down from my soapbox.... oxxoxoxo

Hi Rose you are so right and there is no room in the jail for petty crimes, but I also agree that they should have fairly large fines placed on the as well as community service. I had a young friend who had several speeding tickets down in the states, and they have sort of a neet thing if you pay the ticket with in 8 hours the ticket is what it read, if you pay with in 24 hours it goes up $25, after that every month the ticket doubles, so what started out to be a $70 ticket turned in to a $2100 nightmare. and because he didn't have any personal property to seize they took the truck he was driving for him employer. Now I do not think they can actually seize some one else's property for something you did but they sure can take their own sweet time getting in touch with the actual owner and advising them that their truck is parked in a police lot and they need to send down another driver because the first one is in their city jail waiting for funds for his fines. As usual this young man had a grandmother who sent the money down and he was released but not allowed to drive in that state for 5 years, so he lost his job as well because the company needed drivers with no conditions on their license.

I say let the punishment fit the crime. Non violent and stupid offences should be punished by community service unless it is white collar crime that scams people out of their money. You are right we in North America have highest populations in jail. I wonder if we could learn from other countries how to keep some people out of jail but make them pay retribution for their offences.

I think way too much happens in jails. Jails just make people more violent. Rehabilitation? I don't know. I don't want a bunch of ex-cons running around my neighbourhood. Whatever the law decides to do, they need to have more control over the fact of the crimminal, not letting him run wild with a bunch of other people hat will make him even more dangerous.

I have to agree with you on this one, jail is not the only answer; like the judge who ruled the teenager had to sit and listen to "Bach" after receiving a ticket for excessive noise. I believe there are many ways that petty crimes can be "paid-for" by the perpetrator instead of jail time. Unfortunately, too many do not show up for court and a warrant is a warrant irrespective of the crime. When the warrant is served it's jail time until that individual can go to court. Until our court systems can move a little faster, jail cells will still continue to overflow!

I think that the people that should be behind bars should be the people that do really bad crimes like murder and robbery. If it is something that isn't very serious should be handeled by probation or something like that.