Just Awful...

The story of Jaycee Lee Dugard is all over the news right now. She was kidnapped as a little girl (just 11 years old) and held captive for 18 years by the two mouth-breathers at right. The man is 58 year old Phillip Garrido, and he's a convicted rapist.

This is yet another example of our government failing to protect us from criminals – arguably the primary purpose of state and local governments in the first place. In this case, it's a known sexual predator released back into society with no practical constraints on his behavior. Examples like this, unfortunately, abound – and not just in California. This is a national problem.

It's hard for me to imagine anyone defending the current state of affairs with respect to how we deal with the Phillip Garridos of the world – but, in fact, there are many defenders of the status quo. Primarily these defenders can be found in two populations: politicians and academics, two groups notable for the isolation from the rest of us.

Personally I think that society's main tool for handling the Philip Garridos should be something like penal colonies, with hard work and short lifetimes the expected outcome. I'd love to see a never-ending stream of news stories emerging from such colonies about the horrors of incarceration therein – sounds like a great deterrent to me!

But I'd be accepting of nearly any change, as I can think of very few possibilities worse than what we do today (we could give them cash prizes, perhaps?)...