But I do think the tent jails are a WONDERFUL idea. If our guardsmen are living in Iraq in tents for a full year defending our country - why cant hardened criminals do the same??
I say give the inmates the bare minimums to survive - the bare necessities. Food -Clothing- Shelter, thats it, no more.
Food: Soup, cornbread and water everyday 7 days a week.
Clothing: Jumpsuits - you get one jumpsuit a week and one clean change of underwear a day.
Shelter: Tents - The day revolves around sunrise and sunset. No AC during the summer and the appropriate clothing and extra blankets will be provided during colder months.
The criminals should be allowed only one meal per day thats it. Also these criminals should ALL be going out and working to pick up trash, tend to vegetable gardens and crops, also do construction work on the prison grounds. Make them work 10 hour days. Make them hate every minute of being there. If they hate it bad enough I gaurantee you they wont be back. Allow them very little free time to form gangs.
The prisons that are being built now have WAY too many luxuries in my opionion. As someone posted earlier, many homeless people will commit crimes if they cannot find shelter elsewhere. They know in prison they will get to have a warm bed to sleep in, free cable TV, alot of free time to do whatever, and free food. These prisoners have it easy compared to the law abiding citizens that are working 2-3 jobs just make bills at the end of month.
I say quit building multi-million dollar state of the art prison systems, start building tent cities and start making these prisoners earn their keep.