Just punishments
There's no doubt that America's penal system needs major reform. The question is, what reforms will really be effective?

I'm often troubled by the fact that our current system does little for victims. How helpful is it to a family who lost a mother to a drunk driver, or life savings to a fradulent broker, to know the perpetrator is sitting in jail at their expense? While I'm not in favor of returning to the O.T. law in its totality (for reasons I won't go into right now), I think we've lost something by not incorporating the biblical use of recompense or retribution.

Our current system is warped in particular ways because two camps have been in a tug of war trying to shape the philosophy of punishment. On one side are those who want criminals to suffer very greatly, and for more to receive the death penalty as a way of deterring crime. On the other side are those who want to reform prisoners and educate them to a better life, as a means of preventing future crimes.

In the meantime, our prisons are bulging. We're neither deterring crime nor putting whole, reformed people on the streets after they serve their time. I'm troubled not only by violent criminals who remain unchanged by having shattered lives, but also by "white collar criminals" who have little remorse for the financial ruin they have brought to others.

I doubt I'm the first to suggest this, but I think it might be a good thing to require criminals to compensate those they harm. As part of passing sentence, a price would be set that the criminal would have to earn during his or her inprisonment. The government would pay that amount to the victim or victims or victim's family, then the prisoner would work to reimburse the government. Not only that, but part of prisoners' wages should go to pay for their food and shelter, and part put in savings to help them start over on the outside (perhaps a 60/30/10 split of wages).

Of course, this would necessitate turning our prisons into houses of industry instead of houses of sloth. Some could become factories, some farms, some providing services like claims processing or groundskeeping. By being productive, prisoners would gain skills without putting excessive financial burdens on taxpayers. And working would give a sense of purpose--an element that's sadly absent in current models of rehabilitating criminals.

Prisoners would be reminded of their debt to those they harmed every time they received a wages statement. Hopefully this would cause them to see their victims as people, feel remorse, and at the same time feel that they are somewhat redeeming the situation.

I don't know that this would be effective in the cases of serial-killer psychopaths. But it might help some other criminals who steal, car-jack, deal drugs, extort, blackmail, commit fraud, rob using guns, burn down buildings, drive drunk and kill due to negligence.

This model may have some serious weaknesses, which you're welcome to point out. But I think the underlying idea of retribution and working prisons is more helpful to prisoners, victims and society that what we currently have.