Originally Posted by analog

My only take on this whole matter is this-

People always say prison is supposed to be more about rehabilitation than punishment.

So here's my simple query: If jail is to rehabilitate, no matter how horrible the crime, and enough rehabilitation is reached to cause the person to become some sort of positively-contributing member of society... then why are we still killing him?

Let him die in jail, sure, but let him spend his remaining years CONTINUING to lead kids away from the pressures of gangs, to keep working for no money towards keeping children out of the mindsets that put them into the gang scene.

You can talk about how he should die in jail for his crimes in the past, but if this case shows us anything, it's that the notions of prison being for "rehabilitation", which many of us know to be bullshit anyway, are totally unfounded. He's doing community service work- GOOD community service work. Working to turn around the harm he caused before. Is there no benefit to be gotten from free community service that helps others from following in his footsteps? From him saying, look, I'm gonna die in here. And for what? Because I thought i was cool in a gang? Have more respect for yourself than that.

Now, the message is, no matter how much you try to do good, people will only see the past, and just simply don't give two shits about your many, many years of positive service to the world. I don't give a damn who you are, or what you did- when you spend so many years writing books and doing all this work to try and keep other generations of kids from making your mistake, teaching them to be better people, I think you should at least not get shrugged off like a common fucking criminal who never tried to give something back.