Posted by
neosecularist on Saturday, March 01, 2008 12:00:00 AM
A new report on American prisons finds that 1 out of every 100 Americans is now behind bars. That's just over 2.3 million. This will indeed be fodder for the liberals who decry anyone being incarcerated, unless for practicing Christianity. And yet, with as high a prison population as we now have, consider the many millions of criminals walking freely across America right now. Never mind the illegal aliens! That little known fact should send shivers down anyone's spine.
The solution, of course, is to build more prisons, and lengthen prison sentences; to restore the three strikes your out policy which worked, and was working; to reincorporate truth in sentencing, and abolish the institution of parole and time off for good behavior; to put a complete stop to the revolving door system; and beyond any doubt to reinstate and subsequently enforce the death penalty across the whole of America.
In other words, if one happens to commit a crime in America, and is caught and convicted, and sentenced to ten years in prison, the rule of law ought to dictate spending exactly ten years in prison, and not a day less. And if it is murder one is convicted of, then, barring life in prison without the possibility of parole (which is the only other legitimate punishment for murder) then - to the gallows! Whether it be death by hanging, firing squad, electric chair, gas chamber, or the ultimate execution - lethal injection (the method(s) to be chosen by the individual states), and none of which are in any real sense "torture", or "cruel and unusual", we would be sending a clear message about how we deal with a fellow member of the human race who commits this particular, this specific of coldest, most savage, brutal and barbaric crimes against humanity. Do not underestimate the value of the death penalty; for it is the most humane, most rational, most civilized, most honorable supreme finality we as a species can mete out on ourselves. And the nearer to the actual judgment it can be administered, short of appeal exhaustion (say within five years at most), there is real proof the death penalty prevents additional murder. When one sits, whiling away the time behind bars on death row knowing it will be years and years, if ever, until "that day" comes, it should not be expected to be as powerful a punishment as that same individual sitting, stewing in an uncomfortable sweat, knowing, fearing that after five calendar years, if not sooner, "that day" will have already passed away into history, and so too will have they.
Indeed, doing all this will keep criminals behind bars longer, and drastically reduce to a single page, the rap sheets we have been accustomed to hearing about with regards to so many repeat offenders. Whether the prison population tops at three million or ten, we have a right to demand from our government (and for which is an actual duty and function thereof) a certain level of safety. That level of safety ought never to be compromised because some among us might fell faint hearted by such voluminous numbers; numbers which ought instead to be more comforting; for if they were not now in prison, where in America would they be?