Well, to start off, my name's Catherine. I'm not a HUGE activist (not a veggie, not really a protestor), but I am a firm believer that our world has some serious problems that need fixing. I was discussing that with my friend, Stel, and asked him what he thought we should do to try and make the world a better place, and he came up with the basic concept for Chain Links- in essence, Chain Links is the idea that prisoners shouldn't spend all their time locked up. Rather, Stel recommended that programs are put in place to put prisoners to community work- and not just picking up trash, either. As much as we want a cleaner, greener planet, there is so much more to be done out there. Our idea is to put prisoners to work making our communities better places to be- put them to work building houses, or painting walls and highways to cover graffiti, building our roads, fixing up schools in the summer. In our opinion, this will serve our communities in multiple ways-
First, the most obvious improvement to the community will be the one right in front of our faces- new houses, schools, roads, cleaner walls, stronger fences. Already, our country has thousands of volunteers who do this work without being asked to, but that's not enough. Why not make these people who have tried to take away from society be the ones to make it better?
Second, by having these men and women (and hopefully children- I'm aiming to implement the painting of walls and overall brightening of communities aspect of this movement in juvenile centers) work together to build something better, we are giving these people both a sense of teamwork and a sense of mattering, a real feeling of importance. I believe, along with Stel, that a lot of criminals feel unimportant in society, and will probably leave prison without a true sense of having accomplished something during their time served. Why not give them the sense of having done something positive to make up for their wrongs?
Lastly, this will show children who might have joined gangs or gotten involved in crime due to a feeling that they couldn't do anything right that they can do something for the world, and hopefully push the volunteering movements among society as well.
This is still just a newborn idea that i've set on it's feet. Anyone who has any ideas, questions, concerns, comments for me, just leave them. I'm truly interested in anything that you have to say! I'll be posting on this almost daily... so keep checking for updates, and if you want me to answer your questions personally, please leave an email address so I know how to get in touch with you.
Thanks for listening!
Until tomorrow,
Catherine
I don't neccessarily agree.
ReplyDeleteI mean, community service is
a good idea for everyone, but
there are a LOT of inmates I
would NOT EVER want wandering
around doing anything for me.
Rapists and murderers, for example,
are meant to be in prison to be
just that- imprisoned. For me, a lot
of community service is fun; I
wouldn't want any type of fun or
sense of purpose given to them.
I think the jail concept is getting
too watered down... our parents'
tax dollars got spent buying inmates
here a baby grand because they're
aren't being "mentally stimulated enough"
a couple years ago. jail should be jail,
not an all expense paid vacation.
i agree- inmates are being pampered far too much. so instead of giving them pianos, and basketball courts, shouldn't they be performing community service? and with these programs, they would all be concentrated at one site, rather than wandering like they do with the trash collection. you pose a good point though... what would we do about high security inmates? i think we should work that into consideration.... :]
ReplyDeleteI agree with the above comments.
ReplyDeletecool. we're all in concurrance :]
ReplyDelete