Aging inmate wants longer jail term to avoid working!

[Unforgiven]

They just locked him up in the city jail and kept him busy washing cop cars and I think they found him useful in keeping the younger inmates in line. He was Okay when he wasn''t drinking- I think his biggest sin was he didn't have too many other hobbies.

Perhaps one of the biggest problems. You have to think who raised him and gave him things like a work ethic, will power and set the standard for what influences, him.

Usually the first person you think of is the parents, but mostly I would say it's his peers. He works well under supervision obviously but left to his own devices, from what you said, he getting into trouble while drinking.

It sounds perhaps despotic but some people need to be controlled to become productive. That he wanted to be in jail is a good example that some people need this sort of invasion in their life.

 

[JLM]

Perhaps one of the biggest problems. You have to think who raised him and gave him things like a work ethic, will power and set the standard for what influences, him.

Usually the first person you think of is the parents, but mostly I would say it's his peers. He works well under supervision obviously but left to his own devices, from what you said, he getting into trouble while drinking.

It sounds perhaps despotic but some people need to be controlled to become productive. That he wanted to be in jail is a good example that some people need this sort of invasion in their life.

I think it's next to impossible to figure why some people are the way they are, so many people these days seem to be self-destructive, in fact I guess most of us to some degree. Upbringing, I believe has a lot to do with it but not everything. I remember years ago, one of the most notorious criminals in Canada was from a big family of about 14 kids (Andy Bruce was his name)- yet his mother was a hard working solid person who raised 13 upstanding citizens. You just can't never tell.

 

[Machjo]

A simple case of teaching and providing some skills and a place to work which is far cheaper than a correctional institution.

If you want to see what hard prison punishment creates, look to Central America where torture is part of the prison experience.
They release some of the nastiest buggers that soon return to the system for reoffending.

I fully agree. But how are schools and shelters to get enough money for this when the government takes our tax dollars (I don't don't mind paying my taxes) and then spends them on overpriced paintings, ill-thought out wars, inefficient bilingualism policies that give us a 17% success rate, bailouts for failed companies, etc. (something I do mind very much)? If more of my charitable money were tax deductible, I could give even more to useful projects inslead of having the government waste it.

 

[Machjo]

You know, Cliff, if you dig deep enough, most people have a story and a fairly good reason for being the way they are.

To some degree, I would agree that we are all responsible. If we don't want to teach people to fish, then we're partially responsible when they eventually grow up to steal fish.