The military has been advertising for years that it makes men. The military turns young men and women into efficient and effective killing machines every day. If anyone can rehabilitate nonviolent prisoners and turn them into well disciplined killing machines it is the military.

A large majority of black prisoners have ended up in prison because they were never given equal opportunity, never given a fair start. Well, military service would given them a new start in life.

Military service would also be a better way to rehabilitate nonviolent persons in prison than locking them away to serve no purpose whatsoever. Prison just makes people go more rotten. If the state had a program which involved allowing people to serve out their time in the military or National Guard, this would certainly go a long way to alleviating over crowding in our prisons.

I have yet to hear anyone else offer a more economical or effective solution. Certainly the courts have not offered a solution. Nor has the Legislature. Nor have the editors of this newspaper. Why cannot our esteemed judges and law makers figure this problem out? How do you know my idea would not work? It has never been tried!

With proper testing and evaluation of skills, abilities and aptitude selection could be made of those nonviolent prisoners suitable for military service. They could go through a basic training program just like every other man and woman in the military does. Those who passed this test would then become soldiers and if they completed their duty could be pardoned.

Hopefully the vast majority of nonviolent offenders will return to society and lead normal, productive lives; unless, of course, our prison systems fail to rehibilitate them and they bounch in and out of prison for the rest of their lives. It is a bad idea is to lock people away forever unless they have committed some terrible or atrocious crime like blow up a federal building, assassinate a president or shoot and kill innocent people from a tower. But just because Timothy Mc Veigh, Lee Harvey Oswald and Charles Whitman all learned and toned their killing skills in the military, that does not mean that the majority of nonviolent prisoners could not be rehibilitated and reprogrammed to reenter society as better people.

Certainly I am not advocating that we take rapist, murderers and child molesters and put them in uniform. What I am advocating is that nonviolent prisoners be evaluated and those who volunteer and past the evaluation, be permitted to do public service in the defense of their country.

Judges often order public service to nonviolent offenders as an alternative or in addition to prison time. So using this human resource instead of wasting it would give these people an opportunity to help our nation. They would be given the chance to turn their lives around. What is wrong with that?

Everyone deserves a second chance. This would be a way we could forgive those who have trespassed against us and permit them to repay their debt to society, to their country, in a way which would benefit our great Republic.

The idea that nonviolent prisoners or those who have committed relatively minor offenses cannot be rehabilitated and should just rot away in prison is inhumane. There are a number of military type programs which use the strict discipline of basic training to reprogram and rehabilitate youth. Certainly the military would be easily able to rehabilitate men and women who are in prison for petty crimes and turn them into respectable, honorable citizens.

The only way to prove that this can work is to try it. But if eyes and minds remain closed to an idea it will never get a chance to be tested. If this idea were to work, it would take a lot of business away from corrupt lawyers, legislatures, judges and law enforcement agents who indirectly make a living off of a revolving door prison population that is never rehabilitated and trapped in the viscous cycle of a failed criminal justice system.

So you won't be getting an apology from me on this issue. I'm no Trent Lott!

Sincerely,
Terry Lynch
Date: 11 Jan., 2003

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