This story in the Winston-Salem Journal just blows my mind:

A man stole a TV ($140 value) in North Carolina in 1970 and was convicted of second-degree burglary and sentenced to life in prison. The law has since been changed so the most you could get now for the same crime is three years.

Apparently this guy wasn’t a model prisoner so his parole was denied 25 times.  His 26th parole application was approved after some lawyers heard about his case and got involved.  Now at age 64 he’s out of prison and heading home to Georgia.

Here’s a fun game:  in 1996 the average cost for housing an inmate in North Carolina was $58.58  per day (it’s up to $65.80 now).  For arguments sake let’s say that the average cost-per-day over this guy’s stay in the prisons was $35.  That works out to $434,350…for a $140 TV set.  And I suspect the $35 average is probably low.

And people wonder why we have overcrowded prisons, and budgetary crunches.