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Looking at the Ends Justifying the Means thread made me curious, what do you guys think should be an approved form of alternative punishment rather than imprisonment?

As it is, America has one of the most overcrowded prison systems in the world. We don't make the top 100 most overcrowded, but then again if California was it's own country it would be the in the top fifty. (http://newsfeed.time.com/2013/08/05/the-10-worst-countries-for-prison-overcrowding/) Plus Alabama ranks in at 180% overcrowding, making it the most overcrowded state in the country (I got this from the local WSFA news station a few nights ago, sorry for the lack of the citation. It was Governor Bentley saying it though) so probably putting it up there as well. That means that there are some states in the US that have more overcrowding than the majority of countries in the world. So what do you think should be done in place of imprisonment?

I personally prefer a system of working off your labor. It's already basically implemented (In Alabama at least) so that you can get a lesser sentence with work release, but I'm talking full on labor. Building roads, ditches, irrigation systems, etc. You get an alternative to prison that also helps improve the country at the same time without the government having to pay to get it done. Sure it eliminates some jobs (or at least some government contracts), but I think the net gain is worth it. 

What do you guys think?

I say let's kill all of them

Perhaps, but I think something like building more prisons would be more beneficial to the situation as a whole... and it's be pretty funy to see prisoners building prisons for more prisoners.

I'm in no way saying this to be facetious however the Nazi's did something similar with large scale work gangs for public works.

basically huge gangs digging all the basic trenches and berms for roads and bridges etc. it got their employment back up after the crash and greatly boosted their economy as the skilled labour was still needed for finishing things off properly. I'm stretching my memory here but for tem I think it was a mix or voluntary and conscription.

i see it working but with issues in the US, they could get a lot done in large roving chain gangs, digging the ditches and doing the unskilled labour for the country but security would be an issue and there would be large scale civil rights protests about forced labour etc.

you could make it a choice like prison for 5 years or two years in a construction gang and note that they gain valuable construction job experience but then security becomes an issue etc.

overall I'd say I like the idea of prisoners having to work and give back to the country, just need to be VERY careful how it was implemented.

For dangerous criminals that'd be too much of a risk. You'd have to give the inmates a certain level of freedom to do that, and you'd have to give them access to potentially dangerous resources as well.

With that in mind I agree with the having inmates work mentality. Not only would it be mostly free labour, but it would help with the rehabilitation process.

Dangerous criminals with repeat offenses should just have their citizenship revoked and be shipped off to the north pole or something though. Maybe they'll reform up there and create another Austrialia.

Haha. They'll kill each other off. Or find a way back. 

At that point we would be allowed to shoot them? :P

I wouldn't want some criminal scum taking jobs away from hard working civilians. They would have to be placeholders, and work at these jobs. As a placeholder, when a civilian wants that job and qualifies, the prisoner would then be sent off to prison/jail again so the citizen can fill the spot. The problem is that employers may look to abuse that by making sure they get some free labor. With jobs becoming scarce in this country, we don't need to give them to those who don't deserve them.

Criminals that commit high degree crimes and this includes repeat offenders should be executed as I have stated before. Criminals with lower crimes should work forced labor or forced into the military if only to serve as bullet sponges. Of course the problem there is that if you give a criminal a gun, who is he going to point it at? Or we could throw them in a fighting ring where they fight for our entertainment.

We could also use criminals to work with us in exchange for freedom. However we will need to figure out which ones will be cooperative.

Here in America, there is no problem a gun can't fix. Unless the problem is you lost your gun.

A placeholder system is a good idea but that would mean more government management of companies and jobs. Which would likely extend into other things and slow the economy(or something like that.)

Criminals with high degree crimes in a fighting pit? All hail the revival of the Gladiator system. lol

Indentured servatude was very similar to making criminals working to get their freedom. We could use that as an example on which to build a system for the criminals.

The last part depends on which 'gun' your talking about. lol

Gladiatorial combat sounds much more fun. The question is what we should give them. If we gave them guns, it would be more modern but the matches may not last as long. In fact, let's make the hunger games a real thing. Oh what fun!

What kind of gun are you talking about?

shooting a gun won't help you 'shoot' a woman up.

I'd say we let them do it traditional style. With swords, shields, skin-oil, and lions. Well, maybe not lions but whatever.

We could just start dumping them all in Puerto Rico and place a few of our cruisers around the island.

Labor sounds like a good idea but there are complications that come with it (which you can see if you look at all the current prison programs that have inmates take over normal jobs.)

The current prison work programs have prisonners work for something like 5 cents an hour (which they get upon their release), they're commonly used by some corporations as cheap, usually effective labor. The issue with this is that the roles they are fulfilling could instead be going to people who, you know, aren't in prison, or at least people who would be earning more than 5 cents an hour for the work that they'd be doing.

So on the one hand, you will get tons of free labor, but on the other, those prisoners are going to be detrimental to the people who could have taken those jobs (in your examples, construction workers would take a huge hit - construction companies themselves would flourish, what with all those cheap workers, but the usual workers would promptly get screwed out of a job).

So if you DO have prisonners do labor, I think it should be for something that no one would normally get payed for - such as charity work (I can think of nothing else, so that's my only example, haha).

Eh, we need people to stake claims on Antarctica.