I wouldn’t characterize it as a silly slogan. It is a fair statement. I also wouldn’t characterize prison as wasteful. If the budget is bloated then fix the budget. For an analogy, there is waste in the defense budget but I don’t want to stop funding defense, I want to fix the waste. Same goes for the prison system. If there is waste, then fix the waste (and I don’t consider criminals doing time “waste” either).
Again, I don’t think doing time for a crime is foolish at all. Perhaps there are more effective ways of dealing with non-violent criminals (you haven’t given any). Whatever it is it will involve government (and by default, waste) as only government can dish out punishment (or rehab, etc). In any case, I don’t know what other punishment (if you would even give punishment to non-violent criminals) you are suggesting so it is difficult to agree or disagree with you.
Your comment “A smart society…” implies that prison is not smart and your ideas are smart is conjecture, of course. It is also a bit arrogant considering you haven’t made any suggestions. My apologies if you are a regular and have given your position in other posts.
Agree there is waste in both and where possible that should be stopped (we can both dream on). But where as our Defense budget provides true security and technological advancement....our prison systems (outside of violent criminals) provides security under a false premise and grows simply to serve itself.
Again, I don’t think doing time for a crime is foolish at all. Perhaps there are more effective ways of dealing with non-violent criminals (you haven’t given any).
Having human beings simply wasting their days away doing absolutely nothing behind bars is a waste. It is a waste clearly on so many levels. When there could be other options by simply replacing the "punishment phase" of "time" in prison.....with "time" doing something else more productive. Not to mention when we have tens of thousands of Gov't staffed employees on the payrolls simply to administer the needs of these "need not be there" prisoners....that is incredible waste (especially when you take into account bloated salaries, bloated offices and bene packages that only Gov't employees can get).
Look at all those we have in "prison" for "white collar" crimes. These people are talented, educated (oftenly), well schooled in one trade or another (financial, business mgmt, technology, etc, etc). Martha Stewert being a recent example (of popularity)....but there are literally thousands of Mrs. Stewart's out there in jails...that need not be there.
Society (and budgets) would be better off if Ms. Stewart was made to teach her knowledge (freely) to H.S. seniors, local community college courses, etc, etc.
This same would hold true for the financial expert in jail, for the computer science tech, for the small business owner, etc, etc. All of these peoples would have much more (both tangible and intangible) knowledge to be passed on. Especially more so then the corp of public shool teachers and college prof's we have out there today. The knowledge that could be passed on would prove a tremendous benefit to many whom could never afford such advise / experience.
For those non-violent individuals who haven't acquired such specific expertise. Well there is always plenty of simple labor that needs to get done in community after community. And there is nothing derogatory about putting in a days work at whatever that may be. It would serve a larger purpose and without question be a better use of human resources then simply having a person sit behind bars (while other foolishly have jobs just to oversee this person sitting behind bars).
Best regards,........And again, violent criminals deserve to be in prison / jail. I'm a supporter of the death penalty (though the more I see how flawed our legal system is, I'm beginning to question that)....with that said, if one takes a serious look at our current legal system, I believe you can't help but realize it has simply become a bureaucracy thats main objective is to feed itself....And much less about security or punishment.