The modern American penal system has essentially adopted imprisonment as a one-size-fits-all punishment, placing an unnecessary burden on taxpayers while accomplishing fairly little. I believe that there are ways to achieve everything our current system can achieve and more, while spending less, through more intelligent sentencing.
The great irony of imprisonment is this: the criminal has committed a crime, and the government responds by punishing law-abiding taxpayers! Why on earth should good, hardworking Americans be forced to give up their income to pay for the feeding, housing, and recreation of convicted criminals?
Now, I admit that some criminals simply must be confined so that they cannot again hurt anyone. But it is absolutely absurd to use imprisonment as a punishment for, say, nonviolent theft. Here’s a far more intelligent punishment: force the thief to pay back twice what he stole! (And yes, that was also the Old Testament law. Exodus 22:3-4). Alternatively, the thief could be forced to pay back what he stole to the owner, and then forced to pay an equal amount to the government, as a fine. What if the thief does not have enough money? The Biblical law was to sell him into indentured servanthood, which could last for a maximum of six years. Today, we may have an easier way to achieve the same goal: we can automatically deduct a portion of the thief’s income until he has satisfied his debt. (If he is unemployed, we can seize his welfare benefits).
Even many violent criminals do not really need to be locked up. Is the average person convicted of battery really a predator who must be kept away from his would-be prey? I don’t think so. I suspect that many of them may be generally good people who simply lost their tempers. To throw them in jail seems unnecessary. A far better solution would be corporal punishment. Twenty lashes (carried out in a public place, to add humiliation to pain) should be enough to teach someone not to get into drunken barfights, while letting him go back to his home and his job—letting him get on with his life—almost immediately. Cruel and unusual? Compared to prison, it’s positively humane!
