Illinois prisoners help communities recover from storm damage

[Xing]

I'm posting this, because I think our prison system is usually screwed up. People have this idiotic impression that putting people in building for a few years is a solution to crime. It is, for those years their in jail. However, after a few years of making friends with Buck Killsalot, Sammy "Knuckles" Conners, hours of television, and steamy letters to the women on the show "The View," I think people come out, more like they're ready to bash a couple of skulls in with their fists.

Anyway, the prison system isn't entirely screwed up, and this, in my opinion , was actually a good move on their part. It actually seems like these prisoners did more to clean up those storms than the government. They worked hard, and they felt good doing it. Crime often comes from people deprived of wealth, motivation, and respect. Society always has , in my opinion, at least 1% of the responsibility for crime in the world.

Illinois prisoners help communities recover from storm damage
ASSOCIATED PRESS
12/23/2006

SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (AP) -- Illinois prison inmates helped communities all over the state recover from severe weather in 2006.

Inmate crews worked more than 60,000 hours this year, assisting with the clean up of debris and fallen tree limbs following tornadoes, blizzards and storms, said Mike McKinney, assistant warden for the Illinois Department of Corrections.

"They feel good about it. They are giving something back. They know they screwed up," said McKinney, who serves as the IDOC liaison to the state emergency management agency.

When a storm dumped more than a foot of snow in some parts of Illinois late last month, inmate crews put in nearly 20,000 hours of work. Prisoners from Vandalia, Decatur, Taylorville and Lincoln have been deployed to nearly 20 communities in seven counties to provide debris removal.

Inmate crews helped clean up an area near the historic courthouse in Mount Pulaski.

"I can't say enough good things about the work that they did," said Mount Pulaski public works chief Mike Patridge.