On Wednesday, Feb. 14, 2011, there was a letter from the Marietta Times. It talked about prison costs being in the millions.

If the people in charge would get their heads out of where it does not belong, there are a lot of ways to pay for prisons that are needed. I

know a way to cut costs to the city, county and state and still maintain prisons.

Prisoners not wanting to return to prison need to work.

First, quit playing with these people. Put then out on a road gang (if necessary in chains, putting them together to prevent them from escaping).

If the ACLU doesn’t like it, take the ACLU person or persons who filed the complaint and put the ACLU person or persons in the prisoner’s place.

I have worked for over 50 years, even longer, and no one ever gave me a bed to sleep in, three hot meals every day, heat in cold weather, and a cool room in the summer. Put orange or black and white striped clothes on these prisoners and put them to work.

I have been a union person and I am not saying take work away from county or state workers.

What I am saying is there are a lot of things that could be done to improve the whole county and state.

Example: The trash dumps. People who have old cars along the hillside, cut brush. (I have done all in the past). These people who break the law and don’t show up for probation appointments, they need to be with someone who does not like lawbreakers.

Hard work will help work the dope out of their system. In the summer I see these guys and gals along the road doing very little to work off what they owe the court.

The person over them really is babysitting these lawbreakers.

As in Georgia, Kentucky and Texas, along with other states, they have had chain gangs for years. Most crimes today are linked to the using of or selling of a controlled substance.

Make their lives miserable. They have made someone else’s life miserable.

I have talked to others and we are tired of seeing these people laying around and doing nothing. I know these people will say “no jobs.”

They are right. There is no work for lazy people who look like they just got out of bed, their clothes falling off of them.

Men should be men and ladies should be ladies.

Welfare was not created to help people for life. There needs to be a real crackdown. To our voted-in prosecutor and judges – don’t slap the thief, drunks and dopers on their hands.

Make it to where they do not want to be incarcerated in our community.

Bill Lightner

Ironton