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We read so much in our local newspapers about what type of lifestyle an inmate has, their living habits, their activities, their health matters, etc. During an inmates stay in one of the many camps across this state, there are many different avenues one can take. First of all, the lifestyle of an inmate is as different as it is on the street. There are straight men, gay men, shy men, body builders, bookworms and those who are trying to make it out never return. Those are the ones that really want and need the most help. Those who are able to attend classes and programs to better themselves need all the help a family and community can give. If an inmate without a high school education takes the time to get one while inside prison they should be supported in getting at least two years of college or getting a working trade.

With this under their belts they should be supported by their community by first being given an open hand when it comes to employment. All people fall from time to time. Instead of kicking them while they are down, we should be taking them by the hand and seeking out better ways of helping them make better choices. Now of days all we seek is placing a person in prison for years at a high expense to all tax payers. Some crimes should require the inmate to really pay for their crimes instead of the taxpayers. Everyone wants everyone to pay for what they did wrong. So if they make a mistake and break the laws of our state, they should be place on house arrest with them working and paying for at least 75% of the cost to keep them on house arrest.

With this type of program, the cost of housing an inmate would cost the taxpayers a lot less tax dollars. Housing an inmate for breaking the law is just making them feel you owe them a roof over their heads, three meals a day, and free health care for those with chronic illnesses. With the law breaker paying for their own upkeep and 75% of their house imprisonment, that should cut is crime as well as helping get the help an inmate needs. On a camp with over nine hundred inmates, it is very hard for an inmate to get on any programs that will really them.

They spend most days just laying around sleeping or finding out more ways of breaking the law. They should have to get out in the community and do whatever it takes to clean it up and make it a better place to live. They should keep their jobs, pay taxes, rent, food, power and public programs to teach them better ways to keep from breaking the law. Instead of having enough programs to help an inmate become a better citizen, the state uses the prison system as a cash cow.

Most employees of the state look at their jobs just as a paycheck. There are some employees who try to help inmates, but are tired with the DOC rules cut what they are allowed to do and the way some inmates treat the system as a career. They get out one month and are back the next with even more time, because the state sets the guidelines for the judges to go by which cost the taxpayer any where from twenty-five thousand dollars to one million per inmate per year for those with chronic illnesses. The inmate pays nothing in a lot of cases for any of their upkeep while in a prison camp in the state. With house arrest, they must pay all their expenses plus 75% on the tag for use of the services for this sentence.

This is the only way an inmate is going to really learn from their mistakes. Not by being housed in a dorm seeking other ways of breaking the law, sitting around playing games or just watching TV. That is all the sate has to offer in the way of correcting inmates in this day and age. There are even programs a group ca do to help the courts and prisons, but the state has a cash cow and wants at least two grants to fund such a program which just may cut the size of inmates in our prisons. That would cost the state tax money which most tax payers would like to know where all that money goes anyway.

Some citizens feel the economy is not up to keep throwing tax money at a cash cow. Life being an inmate seems to be the right thing for those who make it a career, because like was state before, they get what they need for free. There are rules in which everyone must obey, but it is hard sometimes when the guards try to enforce rules they are breaking more than inmates. Inmates really have a problem with this, because some guards are doing what they, the inmate, are locked up for. The feeling is why an inmate should try to make their life better when there is no drive from the prison system to support them.

Would it not be better on the system and the tax budget if more sentences were based on the person serving the time having to really pay for doing the crime? Taking something every week instead of a free ride on the state is better on all taxpayers. The system tells us the cost for using this service is costly. Not as much as putting them in prison and having the one sentenced paying seventy-five of the cost for the ten or more years they have to serve.

They would have to stay employed, pay all their up keep, keep their children up, be at home at all times unless working or having their parole officer’s permission to shop for groceries. This type system will cut the tax bill by several billion dollars per year. Do the audit and see where it leads you. Everyone makes mistakes. Those who kill one another should be locked up. Those who hurt our children under 14 should be locked up as well as rapists, but the other crimes should have to pay out of their pockets for doing so. Check your data and let’s make a change.

Citizens for Better Ways to use out tax dollars!