Local story here...a group of young vandals repeatedly abused a high school in Prosser, Washington, causing roughly $400,000 in three seperate incidents. One of the rocket scientists was found guilty of participating/organizing all three of the occurances, and was scentenced to two years in jail today.
Prosser teen to spend 2 years in jail for vandalizing high school
Read more: http://www.tri-cityherald.com/2011/12/12/1750523/prosser-teen-to-spend-2-years.html#ixzz1gNXR96Iu
How could part of the sentence NOT include putting these young punks to work fixing what they destroyed? Sending him to prison for two years is the easy way out! The amount of damage they caused amounts to roughly 2% of the Prosser School Districts budget...other things are going to need to be cut to pay to fix/clean up the mess these guys made...
Sigh. I know...trying to supervise these kids doing the work to fix things would be tough...but sending an 18-year old to prison for 2-years(heck, 6 months by the time they reduce his sentence because of crowding) isn't going to fix the kid, OR the damage they caused.
Betcha if they made the kid fix the damage, he'd be under employment regulations and all that entails...including minimum wage and all the goodies that go with it. To say nothing of becoming a government employee.
ReplyDeleteAnd perhaps requiring to have the kid fix the damage would interfere with union regulations. Don't want to take a job away from a skilled union worker now, do we...?
But if he and others at that level of crime weren't put in jail, some jail personnel might lose their positions...another skilled union job.
So see? Putting this kid in jail is part of a jobs program.
But I agree jail is a quick, easy fix - but applied way too often and inappropriately.
Q