PUT PUNISHMENT BACK IN JAIL

Dora B. Schiro, director of Missouri's prisons, says she doesn't think the state needs to follow the example of others that have reintroduced prison chain gangs.

Sens. Bill Kenney of Lee's Summit, who is seeking the Republican nomination for governor, and Sam Graves of Tarkio, have introduced a bill that stipulates, among other things, that the prisoners participating in work programs "shall wear distinctive, colored uniforms and may be required to wear shackles and chains." Alabama recently re-established prison chain gangs on a limited basis, as did Arizona.

The thought of prison chain gangs is a radical departure from the ideas prevalent among corrections officials in the 1960s and 1970s who thought what was needed were more programs to rehabilitate wayward souls who, through bad environment and a host of societal ills, ended up behind bars. But experience is a great teacher, and the lessons of well-intended rehabilitation and education schemes are that they rarely work.

Recidivism rates reflect an inmate population most apt to return to a life of crime upon their release. If prison rehabilitation is an ineffective deterrent to crime, why not try discipline and humiliation?

Schiro says Missouri's emphasis is on training prisoners to "get up out of their beds every morning and work at a job, just as they will be required to do when they're released." The department of corrections has focused its programs on improving convicts' lives while behind bars and training convicts how to earn a living upon release.

Few would argue against programs aimed at giving convicts the skills needed to become responsible citizens once they're released. But what about the hardened criminals who never will be released or whose chance of any meaningful rehabilitation is nil?

Is it so hard to imagine that the site of such people, shackled together in orange jumpsuits and performing menial drudgery, would help deter would-be criminals who want to avoid the same fate? It's time to put punishment back into prison sentences.