Prisoners should not have TVs.
If they want entertainment, I suggest reading or a fast game of
solitaire, but when there are families in America that can't hardly
put food on the table, it's a damn crime to put a TV in a criminals
tax-financed, steel reinforced chalet.
Prisoners should not have ANYTHING!
Ok, that's taking it a bit far. They should have:
Yeah, a radio. It would pass the time, it's cheap, it would keep them
up to date on current events, and with a headset they could crank it up
without irritating each other.
What they should NOT have is:
Did you catch that last one? That's right...
Prisoners shouldn't have full physical contact with each other.
No more of this rape crap. Doing away with physical contact that
couldn't be accomplished through the cell bars would resolve the problem.
If you can reach through the bars and shake hands, fine, but no one's
going to die, be beat up, robbed, threatened, or raped while under the
state's care. Prisons should be *very* unpleasant, but your life shouldn't
end there -- unless of course you're there for life...
Funding for prisons is squandered.
It's my understanding that prisons buy weird crap for prisoners, like
TVs, weight sets, Nintendo games, etc., because they're playing the
budget game. The budget game goes something like this: You're allocated
just so much money in a year. If you haven't used up the money by the
end of the year, Congress decides that perhaps you didn't need that much
money after all and allocates less next time. If you then need more
money, it isn't there. So what do you do? You spend EVERY DIME, no
matter what it's on, so you can show the need for that funding. You
might even overspend a bit so it'll look like you were scraping by and
you need MORE than last time. One thing we need is prison budget reform.
Chain gangs are good.
I think it's great that we take people that hurt society and put them
to work for society in a way that demonstrates that people do NOT get
away with things. It's my belief that people do things because they
think they can get away with it, and if you demonstrate to them that
in fact they cannot get away with it in a way that is immediately
evident and impressive, it will REDUCE CRIME.
Training programs are badly needed.
I'm not real happy about the idea of rewarding someone for committing
a crime by giving them free job training and education, but giving
someone a reason to respect themselves enough to avoid crime is probably
the best bet we have for keeping some people out of prison. Allow them
to learn a real trade, something they can support a family with.
Cell size should be reduced a foot in each direction
for each time you're convicted.
Folks that just don't get it would eventually find
themselves in a space so small that they couldn't even lie down.
Try that out for a couple of years and I'll bet you'll do ANYTHING
to live a law-abiding life. Ok, so maybe that one isn't very realistic,
but it just came to me and I found it rather amusing...
Prison riots should be made impossible.
How? No direct contact between guards and prisoners unless the prisoner
has been gassed first. Yup, you got it -- gas'em. Say Big Bad John gets
disorderly
and trashes things, then refuses to return to his cell. Gas him. Prisons
should be constructed in such a way that any point in the prison can be
reduced to a confinement of no more than, say, 20 feet by 20 feet.
Just keep closing doors until Big Bad John is contained in a reasonable
space, then toss some gas canisters in there. Keep tossing them in
until ole John is out cold. Then shoot him with a drugged dart for
good measure.
Act like an animal, get treated like an animal.
When Big Bad John comes to, he's in solitary. For all
his tantrum throwing, he was never a threat to the guards and he was
never able to really get out of hand. And when he gets out of solitary,
he goes back to his cell, does some pushups and situps, reads a book by
Richard Bach, studies for his upcoming exam in Pascal 101, all while
listening to a little Mariah Carey on his AM/FM radio.
- Appropriate clothing
- Protection from the elements
- A matress to lay on, blankets, and a pillow for their heads
- Three square meals a day. Nothing fancy.
- A small (no bigger than a deck of cards) AM/FM radio with headset
- Conjugal visits
- VCRs, stereos, or any other kind of electronic equipment
- Typewriters
- Video games
- Cigarettes
- Drugs
- Full physical contact with other prisoners