you have done it?" Simon asked." I used to be a rod carrier," the convict answered, "on theWorld Trade Center building-eighty floors up, gettingeighteen dollars an hour. One misstep and I was dead. With hash I could make $300,000 a week. One misstep andI was in prison. Better odds." (Simon 75)The immediate payoff of crime is so great that many are willing to riskprison. The certainty of restitution, by requiring payment, takes theprofitout of crime. The assets of organized crime members and big timenarcotics dealers, for example, could be seized at arrest and confiscatedonconviction, with the offender ordered to make further restitution throughwork programs. That is real punishment. Many Americans believe in our current prison system, andalso believe that it is an effective form of punishment for the criminal. Some would say that criminals can live decent, civilized lives in prisonandgraduate to decent, civilized lives in the free world. My question tothesepeople is; how can criminals live civilized lives in an environment thatonlyoffers chaos and mild forms of anarchy? It is well known what goes onbehind closed doors in prison; terrible atrocities that make the bloodboiland the stomach curdle are the only thing these prisoners are accustomedto while they are in prison. Most inmates learn little of value duringtheirconfinement behind bars, mostly because they adapt to prison in immatureand often self-defeating ways. As a result, they leave prison nobetter-andsometimes considerably worse-than when they went in. The first timeoffender who is arrested for burglary does not belong in a prison wheretheonly thing he will learn is how to become a better and more violentburglar. Instead, why not make him pay restitution to the store owner whom herobbed? In my opinion, if this form of punishment was initiated for thelesser offender, our prisons will have the vacancies to incarcerate theJeffery Dahmers of the world in pris...
