work programs; where the criminal is given a job and must relinquish his or her earningstothe victim of their crime until the mental and physical damages of theirvictims are sufficed. A court will determine how much money the criminalwill have to pay for his restitution costs, and what job the criminal willhaveto do to pay back that restitution. The most obvious benefit of this approach is that it takes care of thevictim, the forgotten person in the current system. Those who experienceproperty crime deserve more than just the satisfaction of seeing theoffender go to prison. Daniel Van Ness, president of Justice Fellowship,has said:All the legal systems which helped form western lawemphasize the need for offenders to settle with victims. Theoffense was seen as primarily a violation against the victim. While the common welfare had been violated and thecommunity therefore had an interest and responsibility inseeing that the wrong was addressed and the offenderpunished, the offense was not considered primarily a crimeagainst the state as it is today. (76)Restitution offers the criminal a means to restore himself-to undergo arealchange of character. Mere imprisonment cannot do this; nothing candestroy a man's soul more surely than living without useful work andpurpose. Feodor Dostoevsky, a prisoner for ten years during czaristrepression, wrote, "If one wanted to crush, to annihilate a man utterly,toinflict on him the most terrible of punishments...one need only give himwork on a completely useless and irrational character" (77). This isexactlywhat goes on in the "make work" approach of our prisons and it is one ofthe contributing factors to prison violence. To quote Jack Kemp, authorofCrime and Punishment in Modern America: The idea that a burglar should return stolen goods, pay fordamage to the house he broke into and pay his victims forthe time lost from work to appear at a trial meets withuniversal support from the American peo...
