Why is a punishment for prison inmates, to pick up trash on highways? Isn't this something we all need to do, not just criminals?

Actually for civilians picking up trash as court ordered community service it is punishment but it is my understanding that for convicts/inmates,it is actually a treat as they get out instead of being locked up.

It seems like that really comes down to how you choose to explain it. When I was a child, I believe I was told something along the lines of, “They are trying to teach them to do good things. They got put in jail because they broke the law, but now they are learning to do good things and help people.”

Beyond that, I think I would also bring up the Adopt a Highway program. Discuss that the highway does not only get cleaned by criminals, but also by “normal” people. There are some people that do it just because they care about the environment and keeping things looking nice rather than because they have to do it. Other people give money so that those people can afford to keep cleaning the highways.

I also think that children will learn much more about good citizenship and taking care of the earth by watching their parents than by occasionally passing criminals cleaning up the roads. My parents regularly picked up all the trash by the road in front of their property, and I learned to do it, too. If a child started to look at it as a punishment for criminals rather than for them, the parents could intentionally clean up along a safe road with the child, and make it a lot of fun for them. I don’t think the occasional passing incident will make much difference if the parents are seeking to instill healthy attitudes in their children.

That’s community service. They don’t let the hardcore violent criminals do that.
Those are your DUI’s, identity thieves, minor crimes compared to murder.
Why let a convicted rapist do highway detail where there’s a chance of escape?

Yes it is something we need to do but I have never once, seen a free civilian picking up trash because it was a good thing to do.
In fact I once saw a group of local youths that were part of a group picking up trash in a local neighborhood, while they themselves were tossed their own garbage like chip bags and cigarette butts behind them. WTF?

Yes we all need to do it, unfortunatly we do not all do it.

@Captain_Fantasy – Or a chance of suicide?

I hadn’t thought of prisoner suicide on the highway but sure why not? Let’s keep that from happening too.

@Pretty_Lilly yeah, you pretty much hit the nail on the head.

stuff just needs to get done around the county and, well, what better people to use but those who haven’t done something so terrible as murder. they are everyday people who got busted doing stupid stuff. the sheriff says, “hey, because of your stupid act of not having insurance or getting a ticket of driving drunk, but you didnt kill nobody, you are sentenced to cleaning this or that. dont you ever do it again.!”

the subjects are awarded stupid menial tasks or community service that is degrading and eye-opening for the offender, hence people on the highway or streets picking up litter, thrashing tall weeds and stuff.

@Captain_Fantasy – I’m just saying… if I murdered someone and was sentenced to a life in jail to think about what I had done, jumping in front of a truck wouldn’t seem like a completely terrible option.

@xxii… did you ever see cool hand luke? you cant do that, they just make you dig holes.lol

@slick44 – I never saw that. What do you mean they just make you dig holes?

I don’t know the official reason, but I do know that being forced to do something takes the joy out of it.

Yep. Basically. But picking up trash and empty cheeto bags floating around on the grass is just so hard and they save this “job” for the jailers.

We all have a role to play to restoring our environment to the best possible condition. We should make such activities important community events where we get to known others in our neighbourhood while we work together to achieve a common goal.

So many of us have no sense of community and many of us don’t know and never meet out neighbours. This kind of isolation supports a selfish, “whatever is best for me” attitude because everyone around us is an anonymous nobody.

We all need to not throw trash out on the ground. Prison labor for such jobs seems appropriate to me.

Yeah I had information on chain gangs but I can’t find the link,sorry.

Could you imagine the mess we’d have on our hands if we actually made the inmates work? You’d get more protesters for that than the whole death penalty thing.