Turn Lay and Skilling Over to the Gates Foundation?

It’d be a criminal waste of human resources to let Enron’s Ken Lay, Jeff Skilling, etc., simply rot in prison for decades.  They don’t pose a physical danger to anyone else.  There’s no good reason to keep them locked up if they can be put to productive use somewhere else.

I have a better idea:  Ship ’em to Seattle where — subject to good behavior — they can work for prison wages helping the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to do global good works.   I can think of no one in the world less likely to be intimidated by the convicts, nor anyone more likely to be at least grudgingly respected by them, than BillG.  I imagine he and his Foundation team will be able to put the convicts’ education and organizational skills to good use.  I also imagine the convicts will be very, very anxious to please, for a variety of reasons.

The convicts can live in small, low-cost apartments in Seattle, singly or in groups, with appropriate curfews.  Any misbehavior lands them in real prison. 

The convicts can even have their families live with them if they want.  Several of the convicts have children living at home.  It’d be way better for the kids to have Dad at home, even if home is somewhere new, than to have him locked up for years, hundreds of miles away.  (Disclosure:  One of the lesser Enron convicts is an acquaintance at church, and the son of one of the major convicts is a high-school classmate of one of my own kids.)

If the government seizes the convicts’ financial assets as part of the sentencing, it can allocate enough of those assets to make sure the arrangement doesn’t cost the Foundation money out of pocket.

The cry will surely go up:  These guys are criminals; whey should they get special treatment?  The answer is simple:   A criminal sentence shouldn’t be about vindictively inflicting misery on the convict for its own sake.  It should be about making the most beneficial use of the convict’s talents while s/he is putting in some time working for the rest of us, for restitution and rehabilitation.

(Christians should also remember that, while a convict’s repentance shouldn’t bring immunity from consequences, it should bring forgiveness.)

If this kind of arrangement works, it might serve as a template for similar arrangements for others.  That way, more non-violent criminals could get a chance to make a real contribution to society  — perhaps improving their chances of rehabilitation — instead of merely languishing behind bars.