Working On The Chain Gang

What do you think about this? Not that I expect you have actually worked on the chain gang, actually how many of us exactly know anything about this at all? I know that the area I grew up in has a facility that still uses the chain gang for the prisoners housed there, in my opinion this is not actually a bad thing, Arizona is another state that uses this type of “punishment” for prisoners.

I remember as a kid seeing one of my family members on Main Street in our downtown area pushing a broom sweeping the streets, he had evidently gotten himself into trouble and was sentenced to a term on the chain gang, other times in my life I have seen groups of people in striped jumpsuits working on the side of the road, either picking up trash or chopping weeds with armed guards keeping watch, so with this said I have actually witnessed the chain gangs in action, maybe from a distance but I think having these people out in the communities working off their sentence is better than keeping them behind bars storing up their energy until they burst at the seams so to say from frustration and boredom.

We have a large number of people incarcerated today and for the most part these people actually have it better than some of our senior citizens who are living out their lives in nursing homes. Three square meals a day, a bed to sleep on, Television and books to entertain and learn by, planned activities and free medical so to say, yes I am speaking of the prisoners and not our seniors, so why is it too much to ask these people for a portion of their day to be spent outside somewhere working in an attempt to somewhat pay for the upkeep they are being given, yes I know that some will say “But they are being held against their will”, “They have no choice”, “It’s against their Human Rights” in my opinion no one should be mistreated nor abused and I also believe that no one should be allowed to lay up on their butts and let the state keep them up in exchange for the crime they committed, working off a sentence by cleaning up our communities is a whole lot more impressive to me than working it off lifting weights, playing basketball, and earning a “Prison Law Degree”

What if every prisoner were taken out in small groups each day of the week, under the watchful eye of an armed guard and made to serve the communities that they are being housed in, what if these prisoners were taken to the cemeteries that need cleaned up, down the roads littered with garbage, along the highways that have graffiti cluttering the signs and walls, what if these people were made to take part in cleaning up our communities and helping to keep them clean, rather than kept behind a wall until their time is served. Your next statement may be that we will just be giving them an easier chance to escape, that’s where the armed guards come in, we have to not be afraid of protecting our communities and if a prisoner makes himself a danger to that community then he should be dealt with accordingly, as long as we make prison life easy then the population will continue to grow, if we make it hard and a working environment then some of these people just may take a little pride in their cleanup efforts and actually turn their lives around.

With this said I wonder why we can’t use our prisoners in this manner, why do our criminals have more rights than our citizens, and why are we the ones who have to pay for their crimes through our taxes with nothing in return. Some things are easier said than done and other things are an easy fix if we just use the manpower available to us rather than being afraid of offending someone.