Posted by
John Finnigan on Tuesday, May 08, 2007 11:04:27 AM
I was listening to Chuck Colson’s commentary this morning, found here http://www.breakpoint.org/listingarticle.asp?ID=6467, and thinking about having pay as you go public services, such as jail. I find it outrageous that people with money should be able to purchase greater comfort and safety during incarceration. Yet I look around and see where people with money purchase better health care, education, recreation, living standards and safety in the rest of life.
In Chicago, the area where I live, public schools are by and large abominable. We pay huge taxes in Illinois and our local schools are often bad, if not very bad. I don’t have the inclination to fight the fight to change our public schools, so my children attend private school. As a result my kids can read, write, spell, calculate and reason at or above his grade level. There is no violence in my kids’ school. Bad behavior, bad attitudes and bad blood aren’t tolerated. Most of the kids in my son’s school still have an innocence about themselves you don’t find in public schools.
My wife and I decided to make the financial sacrifice for our kids, for their future, so that they can have more choices and opportunities in the future. We don’t drive new cars, but our kids are getting a superior education.
People, who owe a civil or criminal debt to society, need to pay it. Yet the fact is that our prisons and jails are usually horrid. Individuals who can pay to lessen the horror of their own incarceration free up resources for the rest of the population.
My kids suffer less at their private school then they would in a public one. The difference is that my kids and all kids have no civil or criminal penalty to pay to society.
If I had to go to jail I suppose the Drake Hotel in Chicago would be a more comfortable place to live then the Penn at Joliet. But, do we want people paying their debt to feel less pain because they have money?
John