[Lady Sidhe]

Well, if "life" MEANT "life," it would be different. However, that is rarely the case. And if WE didn't have to pay for incarceration, and prisons were self-sufficient, that would also be different. But we DO. We have to pay to keep these individuals from preying on us. I don't agree with that. We shouldn't have to take care of these predators for however long they're in there.

At the very least, we shouldn't have to pay for their various medical, their cable, etc. Why should they have such privileges? I don't kill, rob, rape, or assault people. I work my ass off to make my bills, take care of my family, and just survive. I don't have money for medical insurance or cable. I don't think I should have to pay to keep these people from kidnapping, raping, and killing my daughter or me, or assaulting, robbing, and killing my husband. It's almost like the mafia extorting money for "protection" from themselves.

Prisons should be self-sufficient. They should be places that people don't want to go for ANY length of time. No medical, no cable, no weight rooms. You're not there to enjoy yourself. You're there to be so miserable that you don't want to ever go there again.

However, I do also think that violent criminals should be seperated from non-violent criminals. They shouldn't be in the same prison. I also think that prisoners who are eligible to eventually get out should be required to get some kind of skill or degree as a condition of getting out. That way, people would HAVE some kind of skill that would help them when they get out. They won't feel they have to go back to doing what got them in prison. At the very least, it would offer them options. THAT would be money well-spent.

And I do believe that there are crimes that warrant the death penalty. The rape of a child. The murder of a child. Murder for any reason other than self-defense, and torture, for example. Some people need to be permanently removed from society, and warehousing them is a waste of money. Extreme crimes should warrant extreme penalties.

There are a few books that bring this idea home. One in particular is called "Death from Child Abuse... and No One Heard." about a little girl named Ursula "Sunshine" Assaid. She was five years old, and her mother's boyfriend had been torturing her for weeks. He made her eat soap; he beat her; he refused to let her go to the bathroom, and beat her when she used the bathroom on herself; denied her water, and a host of other things. When the abuse finally killed her, her mother and the boyfriend wrapped her body in a sheet, weighted it down, and threw it in a pond.

When they were caught, the boyfriend went to prison (he was killed there, which I think was too good for him. He should've had to go through the same torture that little girl experienced), and the mother went to prison also, but she's out now. She knew about the abuse and did nothing to stop it, and now she's out, able to have more kids and do the same to them. It makes me sick. Anyone who can torture and kill a child can do it to anyone, and they deserve to die.

Sidhe