There would be an uproar and a revolution were Virginia taxpayers and voters to realize 30,000 of its members have the privilege of such a yearly stipend.
If law, order, and justice are the logic of society, it's social contract and compact and if, imprisonment besides sanction of execution is the absolute social imposition on the sovereign individual. Then there cannot be any abstractions of nuances in its cognitive determination as it is voted for and funded by the taxpayer. Virginia taxpayers and voters have to understand what is being done IN THER NAME.
The question isn't what is to done with citizens who run afoul of Virginia's criminal laws. Rather what we have to come to terms with is: If the Virginia taxpayer is unwilling to spend $30,000 on citizens in mitigative expenditure on the probability and possibilities of imprisonment in the first place, why then do we gladly spend it to imprison the citizen?
Why should a Virgina citizen convicted of larcenous activity to the tune of a $1,000, given a prison term of 5 years cause a $150,000 financial outlay by the Commonwealth of Virginia. Which is what it would approximately cost Virgina taxpayers and voters to imprison the convicted citizen. There isn't an argument or reasoning that defends such political fact. yet taxpayers and voters glibly participate in this social insanity. Particularly when those same taxpayers and voters criticize and are antagonistic towards the various governmental programs giving assistance to laid-off workers and disabled taxpayers in need.
Imprisonment is a governmental function that is practiced by the state as voted for by taxpayers and if society is a constituent progression of enlightenment. Then citizen-voters have a specific obligation: to recognize what is practical and what is idealistically-speculative.
By William Thorpe
At Red Onion State Prison Solitary Confinement.
