I know there are some who are annoyed with the justice system. Perhaps they feel more victimized than the sentence to the perpetrator would seem to punish. Or maybe they’ve always felt that those who go against the edicts of society should suffer more, even if that suffering is slight.
We can’t give prisoners a bread and water diet. We’ve learned too much about the health effects of food and that could be considered a type of death sentence.
But we also clothe prisoners. Perhaps we could give the male prisoners hot pink outfits. The rage it might inspire would turn some prisoners’ faces pink, too. With anger or embarrassment, those of us who wish to add to the punishment aren’t picky.
But wait, you say, their are female offenders, too. They’d probably welcome a turn toward pink outfits. So we can’t do that. What I propose is so evil that criminal masterminds wouldn’t do it to their worst enemies. I’m talking about dressing the women up in clothing that is ten years out of date.
I see the nods from those of you who want maximum punishment. I just fear it lets one segment of the women off the hook.
Those women who are from backwoods or rural areas, might see the clothes that are 10 years out of date as a step up. In fact they might, upon leaving jail, request to keep their prison clothes and burn the clothes they were brought in with.
I know that eventually my mind will come up with a punishment for those women, I just need to think evilly enough.
But I know there is a segment of society which will go against these changes to prisons. To them I will ask ‘what happened to those sensible fluorescent orange jumpsuits I saws some years ago? Now those ought to exist in every prison.’
Fluorescent orange and yellow as any road worker or crossing guard can tell you is the opposite of camouflage colouring. It stands out against almost any background. And we want escaped prisoners to be as visible as possible. I know we don’t make prisons for prisoners to escape from, but we should face the reality of it happening.
My vote is for all prisoners to wear fluorescent orange and yellow jumpsuits at all times. If the prisoners and their supporters put up too much of a fuss about this, I say we threaten them with the start of this post.
