Immigration Problems, Crime, Solved

Ya know, sometimes you read something that just makes you go, "what the heck!".

While researching gov't expenditures, I found that it costs around

FORTY SEVEN THOUSAND DOLLARS A YEAR

to incarcerate a single prisoner in California. It would seem to me that, for that money, we could give every single arrestee a job picking strawberries, melons, and other produce. We could teach them how to landscape, drywall, carpentry. We could teach them how to fix roads and bridges. There is a huge demand for welder. The 2.5 million in prison would take the jobs from a quarter of the illegals... who would just go back home...

Making $47,000.00/yr, they could help the real estate market, pump dollars into the local economy, support schools. They would gain a sense of worth, purpose... They would no longer need to steal to to feed their family.  Add incentives for productivity. Offer to expung records, reduce charges if certain benchmarks are achieved.

The trick is to catch these folks before they enter the system... or target low risk inmates.

I only see one problem. All our chronically unemployed would start holding up liquor stores and turning themselves in.... just for the job.