some people hold that criminals should do something else outside priosn as the punishment, do you ag The practice of keeping criminals in prison as a punishment has been challenged recently. From my perspective, law offenders should pay for their sins by doing works outside prison. Doing community and voluntary work allows prisoners to make up the damages they caused to the victims and society. Victims from crimes, such as theft, robbery and fraud, usually suffer from great financial loses, which might not be covered by insurance companies. In this case, keeping criminals in prison fails to function as a punishment, for it just segregates the criminals and victims. If prisoners are required to do works outside, their payment can be used to pay for their sins. In this way, they can pay for what they have done to others. Law offenders should labour work outside instead of staying in prisons because it can save the government a large amount of money. Prisons, in many countries, are financed by the national funds, which are mostly from tax. In this sense, citizens are actually paying criminals to stay in a limited area in exchange of a sense of security. Obviously, it is unfair for the law-abiding citizens to pay for the food, clothes and accommodation for those criminals. As a matter of fact, the limited government capital can be used in other more important areas such as education and medical systems rather than the construction and maintenance of prisons. In conclusion, I hold that keeping criminals in prison is not always a wise idea to punish crimes. Instead, having offenders to do works for paying their behaviour is a more practical and meaningful way.