When recession bites: Incarceration in exchange for three free meals a day

When you're lost your job and you can't afford to pay your rent nor your food bills, an exchange for a place in jail doesn't seem like a bad idea: At least you get a roof over your head, top security, three meals a day and you don't have to lift a finger ! Courtesy of your local tax payer of course ! This was exactly what one Taiwanese unemployed man wanted.

Send me back to jail [Extract from the Straits Times]

TAIPEI - A JOBLESS Taiwan man released from prison two years ago asked police to send him back so he could have free meals, police and local media said on Tuesday, a grim sign of hard economic times on the island.
When police found the 45-year-old convicted arsonist lying on a street in a popular Taipei shopping district, he requested a return to life behind bars, nostalgic for the 10 years he had already served, the China Post newspaper reported.
Wang had also contacted police separately with his request, a spokesman said. Officers who found him bought him a boxed lunch but declined to send him back to prison, the police spokesman said.
'We advised him to keep looking for work,' he said. 'I don't know why he can't find a job. Maybe employers think he's not suitable or that he's too old.'

Now here's the irony. Should multi-billionaire wrong doers also get three free meals a day and free rent ?

Madoff's new home


The federal jail in lower Manhattan stands between a courthouse and a church and holds inmates awaiting trial or serving short sentences. Currently, about 750 men and women are behind bars there. -- PHOTO: ASSOCIATED PRESS









NEW YORK - BERNARD Madoff's new Manhattan home is the size of a walk-in closet, with cinderblock walls, linoleum floors and a bunk bed.
Breakfast will be served before sunrise, and the disgraced financier can stretch his legs outside. There's a strict schedule: Lights on at 6am, breakfast at 6.30am, lunch at 11am, dinner at 5 pm, lights out at 11 pm
During the day, inmates can watch television, play ping pong, work on their cases in a legal library or volunteer for janitorial duty.
On alternate days, they are allowed up on the caged roof, where from courthouse windows they can be seen playing basketball.

Not a bad exchange after all....Live a life of luxury for 30 years, and retire in jail.