Bring Me Back to the Days of the Chain Gang

I have been contemplating what to write about all week. There are, of course, those topics that get me all worked up that I could dwell on for hours and bore my readers with. I could have, for example, written about the illegal immigrants again. No, I've already taken a stand on that. I could write about liberal hypocrosy and the toll it's taking on our country. No, Ann Coulter just wrote a book about that, and I don't want to steal her thunder (as if I could). I literally didn't have a single thought until my drive into work this morning. Fabulous, isn't it, how ideas just come to you? Abe Lincoln wrote his Gettysburg Address on the way to Gettysburg. Consider this my Gettysburg.
I was riding (my dad was driving) into work this morning when we passed a modern version of the chain gang. This is to say, a bunch of lazy criminals "picking up trash" on the side of the road. Whenever this happens to me (very rarely), I always pray a silent prayer that the light ahead doesn't turn red, forcing me to be stopped right next their work area. Why? Oh, I don't know, there's something about people who are willing to break the law that makes me nervous.
Spare me the rant about how some people are wrongfully in jail, blah, blah, blah. We all know that most of the people in prison belong there. So move on.
That does however bring me to my point. Do they belong there? What good are they doing society sitting in a jail cell for the better part of a day, living off of our tax dollars, only to (if they do) get out and repeat the same cycle? And if they don't get out, they get 3 square meals a day, watch television, work out, have "recreation" time, and oh, they occasionally go pick trash off of the side of the road. Where's the punishment here? Did I miss something? It doesn't seem to be fitting to any crime.
I'd like to know when the shift happened in this country. When did we go from the chain gang payback, so the sit on your butt and watch tv all day payback?
If someone is caught stealing, they should have to work for the person they stole from to actually pay that individual back. With interest. For several years.
Murder, rape, and child molestation all deserve the death penalty. Period.
The chain gang is a nice little "etablishment" for things like fraud, domestic abuse, other random lewd acts, and anything not mentioned above. To just sit in a cell all day defeats the purpose of why they're there.
We've become so "PC" as a nation, that our judicial system is afraid to offend the offensive. If you wouldn't let your child get away with stealing the cookie from the jar, why are we letting theives get away with stealing the dvd from Best Buy? Letting them sit is letting them get away with it.
On my drive into work I want to start seeing criminals by the hundreds, hooked up to iron chains "making the earth pretty". I think that's an idea even the hippy tree-huggers could get into. It'll save the precious creation they worship.