Engineering News

"Are Robotic Guards the Answer to Controlling Prison Costs?"

No, reducing the need for prisons is the answer to controlling prison costs.

The robot pictured won't last a week in real prison, guaranteed. You'd be amazed at the substances prisoners threw to blind the autonomous prison-guard robots we were testing back in the early 1980s. Btw, that's a terrible mechanical configuration for a prison-guard robot.

Why are so many people in prison with many more expected? That's the real question, non?

Yeah, prison isn't dehumanizing enough already....

No. The 'War on Drugs' is a total waste of money. It should be shut down now, and most of it's victims released from prison. It is not winnable, wastes time, money, and manpower, in the police departments of our country, keeps criminal enterprises running by keeping profits high, doesn't stop the people who want to take drugs and most of all it has created a prison industry. The prison industry has gone private, leading to massive profits, soaring costs, slave labor, and tons of money wasted keeping people in jail that for the most part, hurt no one but themselves (if that). Most of these people were convicted of merely possessing a small part of a plant that grows wild over large portions of the US, and the founding fathers (Washington, Jefferson, etc) actively cultivated as a cash crop. The enactment of prohibition in the US, strengthened organized crime, and was a total failure. This 'drug war' nonsense has even led to the US government trying to outlaw the possession of an element (iodine). You remember, iodine, an element, in the periodic table, really good antibacterial agent, useful to test for the presence of starches, and you can't possibly get high taking iodine. Another example, in Texas, you must have a permit to own an Erlenmeyr flask, a piece of standard laboratory glassware, what utter nonsense.

While alcohol remains legal, it directly kills thousands of people every year. The damage to the liver of chronic abusers of alcohol is well documented. Some people even overdose on alcohol, not get drunk, not pass out, die from the overdose. Contrast that with marijuana. It is virtually impossible to find any documented case in the medical literature of anyone ever harming themselves by overdosing on pot. So, we have the legal drug killing thousands of people every year, and the illegal drug so safe that you can't possibly overdose on it.

Before you write me off as a total nut, I have not ever, and do not now use marijuana, or any other illicit drugs. I don't think it is the business of the government how I spend my free time, or what I choose to put in my body, as long as I don't harm other people in the process. Just as it is none of the government's business how I swing my arms about, as long as I don't connect with anyone else's chin.

My wife suffered through many rounds of chemotherapy after surgery for breast cancer. She was terribly nauseated after every treatment, and lost weight because she couldn't eat anything. I'm convinced that her recovery was slowed because of the nausea from the chemo. The anti-nausea drugs that the doctor ordered helped some, but the most effective and safest drug was denied her because of this useless waste of money called a drug war.

I don't care to ingest drugs myself (I value my brain cells to highly), but, looking at the drug war, I can certainly recognize a total waste of my, and your, taxpayer money when I see it.

"Another example, in Texas, you must have a permit to own an Erlenmeyr flask, a piece of standard laboratory glassware, what utter nonsense."

Lots of things are criminal in Texas. Being a non-custodial father, for example. Lots of them in jail.

Texas Governor Rick Perry prides himself in the number of executions of death-row inmates on his watch. 263 and counting. Before him, George W. Bush held the record, at 55. Before him, Ann Richards held the record, at 50. She still holds the record for the number of foreign nationals executed in violation of the Vienna Convention.

Don't come to Texas.