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July 26, 2005
[off topic]Prison system - punishment or rehab
(Posted by francois to: random brainsqualls )Ok, I was in f2f meetings all day today, so not much time for blogging. But as I drove back from my last meeting I was listening to NPR interviewing the oldest female inmate in the US. She is 92 years old and was sentenced in 2003 to a 7 year prison term! For her that is the equivalent of a death sentence.
That got me thinking about the recent sentence of Bernie Ebbers - 25 years. For a guy his age, that is also a death sentence.
I know those people did wrong - and in some cases they hurt many people. But is that a good reason to give them a life sentence? Those people are not likely to hurt anybody again - and in some cases you could argue that some can still give something back to society.
Should our judicial system only seek punishment? Because that's what you do when you give out a life sentence. What happened to trying to rehabilitate people?
And how does that compare with giving child sex abusers less than 10years...or have some commit crimes after being in jail 5 times for the same thing?
I don't know, but somehow I do not feel good about the way our system works.
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Posted by francois at July 26, 2005 06:46 PM | Bookmark This
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