The worst possible punishment for every crime is prison.

I think there has to be a better way. Those places generally don't even stop people from committing crimes, and they also can further destroy lives of those who are already at their lowest point in life.<br>If you get caught shoplifting, you're already probably in a shitty situation. You're probably poor, you're probably hungry, you probably don't have a job, and life in general is probably treating you poorly. Everything about this situation is going to get worse for you if you go to prison. <br><br>You're not going to get a future job, you're not going to get a decent place to live, your life is going to suck more after you get out than it did before you went in. You're likely to end up on the streets and you're likely to commit more crimes because it's the only thing you can do to get food. I've seen a lot of documentaries on prison, and thestories of how people end up there are identical. Homeless, no job, got busted for some bullshit crime like this and now they're a convicted felon. <br><br>Now imagine instead of prison we had a future where we just had these "work colonies" where criminals would go and they would work for free for a couple of years to pay off whatever debt they accumulated to society in whatever form. Steal some food from a gas station, work a couple extra months. This place would have everything you need to survive, but there would be no entertainment whatsoever. You would work, you would go to sleep, you would repeat every day until you've worked off your debt. There would be no video games, no tv, no radio, no books, no hobbies. Just pure and utter boredom.<br><br>People would fully break down and go insane, but it would be the most humane thing we could possibly do.