Punishment as a Win-Win Solution for Criminals and Society
In today’s issue of the Swiss newspaper “Der Bund” there is an article on punishment as a win-win situation. In the canton Berne more and more criminal offenders are doing work serving the public good instead of being sentenced to prison. This helps the society to save a lot of money and has a motivating effect for the offenders.
There is a number of social institutions to which offenders can be sent, according to the need of the institutions. The offenders are doing unpaid work, which otherwise could not be done. If there are problems with the delinquents, they are sent to another place or to prison.
Some time ago I read that in California they are spending much more money for prisons than for education and that the prisons are overcrowded.
Here in Berne there have been in general very positive results with this initiative of putting criminals to welfare work, helping to save millions of Swiss francs and also helping the delinquents – a real future-oriented solution.
