The state of California took another stride a few days ago in its effort at maintaining its position as the most liberal, progressive state. Its decision to alter the Medicaid program, three years before the state is required to by the federal government, is another link in its chain of progress. Part of that decision is an extension of certain health care benefits to ex-convicts.

Criminals are people who have disregarded law and order, abrogating the social contract, and entering a state of war against us all. They have left their membership in society to the winds; it is gone.

Criminal law is fundamentally different from civil law. Civil law exists as an opportunity for individuals to seek financial compensation for the wrongs done to them as individuals. Criminal law exists because certain actions, if left unchecked and unpunished, damage our society and our polity.

So what do we do when the criminals obtain their release? We’ve decided we have an interest in putting them back on their feet, and in them becoming productive members of society. Maybe that’s true.

But the punishment we dispensed for years — holding them in prison cells far beyond the dreams of millennia worth of prisons — costs money, too. Two years ago in California, that Most Progressive State, the average imprisonment cost was $47,102. That’s an increase by some $19,500 since 2001. Clearly the burdens for imprisonment alone, much less rehabilitation, cost the good people of the several states money they can ill afford.

Not only is the United States the world’s leading jailer, with 23.4 percent of the world’s prison population in 2007, our inmates return to us after release. One 2002 study showed that 51.8 percent of them prove the value of our rehabilitation programs by returning to us within three years.

Maybe instead of spending millions on rehabilitation, we should imprison people longer. After all, that study showed that convicts with longer prison terms had a lower re-arrest rate than other categories. Maybe we should give them more time to think about the harm they’ve caused their victims and the harm they’ve caused the laws of their homeland. Maybe we should make examples of criminals every now and then, instead of dispensing punishment in such private ways.

When was the last public execution in the United States? Such events used to be public events, held in full view with large attendance. Now when executions take place they occur in the heart of a prison and are made to be as painless as possible. Gone are the displays of the power of society over the individual.

Maybe if we do so, we’ll actually change their character instead of providing room and board, paid for by their victims, for a number of years. Instead of giving them monetary benefits and pecuniary advantages, we should consider actually reforming them. Until we compel them to act differently among us, they’ll continue to violate our laws and take advantage of law-abiding citizens.

This editorial was satire for some, and true for others.