Just a thought

[fabsroman]

Exactly what I said, you cannot force inmates to work. As far as illegals getting $10 an hour to work, that is a stretch. Maybe some do, but not most. I have a granite counter top client that pays his guys anywhere between $400 to $600 a week and these guys work 6 days a week and about 50 hours a week. All of them are barely legal. Now, that translates to around $10 an hour, but they all have pretty decent skills in fabricating granite counter tops.

Last I checked, most "first time offenders" are not in jail because they get probation or a suspended sentence. I think we are talking about "first time in-jailers."

As far as rumors getting out, do you think it will make the headlines if a company hires a bunch of illegals or if a company hires a bunch of criminals from a newly created program to give criminals a second chance?

This program would have to be sold to the American public and the borders closed before any big company in the US would agree to participate in the program. Reputations are very important. Look at how Ford's reputation was tarnished by the Firestone tire incident. Good reputations in the business world take a lot of effort to create and maintain, but are easy to lose. If you are the CEO of Ford or any other big company, do you want to take such a chance? Not that Ford would hire illegals in the first place.

Maybe the program would fly with mom and pop stores, but isn't there already something called a work release program? I know of a guy that was sentenced to 10 months in jail on his 4th DWI offense. However, he was granted work release for 6 of the 10 months.

Also, who is to say that these "first time criminals" didn't have a job before they went to jail. I know a guy that just did 15 days in jail for driving on a suspended license. In essence, it was actually a violation of probation issue because he got caught a second time driving on suspended. He had a job painting cars where he was making close to $100,000 a year. If he were spending more than 12 days in jail I bet he would be asking for work release so that he could go back to painting cars and making more than $10 an hour.

Solutions aren't always as simple as they seem.

As far as pumping out babies in the emergency room, I know of plenty of welfare recipients that are doing just that and they are not immigrants or illegals.

Quite honestly, I am all for closing the borders, affordable health care, less smog, less traffic, less crime, more jobs, a higher standard of living, better health care, less law suits, les stringent gun laws, better environmental protection, etc., but solutions to these wants aren't always simple.