King of America 2

New rule: Prison sentences are for violent criminals only.

Where do prisons come from? Does anyone know what a dungeon is? Once upon a time, if someone committed an infraction of the law, you threw them in the dungeon (if the stocks were too good for them). What else do you do with criminals? We should know better by now.

First off, prison ought to be for dangerous people only. If you are a real threat to the safety of innocent people, we need a place to put you. If you lie, cheat, steal, fraud, vandalize, or become a sex offender by mooning some VIPs, I'm not afraid of you.

Secondly, incarceration is expensive. In California, it's $50,000 of state budget to imprison someone for one year. If your system has laws against shoplifting and smoking grass, that kind of stupid is obscene. I'm not worried about keeping the kleptos in check if it's that expensive. My country is broke, dammit!

Third, prison conditions are abysmal. Prison is full of dangerous people and short on space. Everyone is familiar with the concepts of situational homosexuality, situational evil, prison shanks, and prison rape, right? I think modern prison counts as cruel and unusual punishment, and as King, I will not treat my citizens this way.

Finally, is prison an effectual option? Is prison the healthiest thing for an individual's physical and mental well being? Let's try some alternatives that might give a criminal time to reflect on their decisions while contributing, and without disrupting lives and families. I think a criminal's time would be better spent serving mandatory community service: Cleaning up trash, washing city property, planting trees, shoveling snow, collecting fall foliage, mowing grass, or even working with homeless or special needs people. We don't know what works unless we try.

I think prison as it is is archaic. Only violent people belong in prisons, just as only the criminally insane belong in asylums. There is a lot of room for improving society here. Bust a move, assholes.

Amendment 28: The Prison Shank Amendment

      The other night I had a dream where I was a member of Congress, but it was a slightly different vision of congress. I must have been on a committee. We were discussing my own idea for a Constitutional amendment that grants prisoners the right to a safe prison environment. Everyone seemed to love this idea except for 3 people. The first person who objected was oddly enough a guy I knew from High School named Shadi, and the reason he ultimately didn't care for the idea was because in my dream he was some kind of cliched rival who just wanted to stop this bill because it was my idea. He had corny cliched dialogue and everything. In fact, after we passed the Bill, he even stood up, clapped condescendingly, and mockingly congratulated me on my victory and then he promised me that I won't be so lucky next time. The other two people who didn't like the Bill were arrested and escorted out for being evil – more or less. Basically, they didn't like the bill because they were evil, and this was so apparent in their arguments of the bill that they were charged by authorities with being amoral congressmen. I laughed out loud at my dream.

      But anyway, the idea that prisoners should have the right to a safe prison environment is something I came up with a little while ago. If you are incarcerated, then whoever incarcerates you is responsible for your humane treatment and if humane treatment cannot be provided, than you should not be incarcerated. I'm sure most believe that every human, except for an extreme few, deserve to be treated humanely, not with cruelty. Why should a person's humanity be disregarded just because they've made a mistake?

      I like the idea that you can get in trouble for doing your job as a congressman wrong. Not by taking bribes or other forms of illegal, unethical activity, but rather by simply doing your job in such a way that can be construed as non-constructive. A filibuster for instance is a strategy to kill a bill by wasting time talking. Does that sound ethical to you? Many politicians are lawyers who know how to talk and argue creatively. They can avoid areas of discussion that are not beneficial to them. They can make arguments that can mislead. They can be really tricky bastards and I think there's good reason to prohibit people with law degrees from becoming politicians.