Louisiana State Representative Pat Smith, who serves a district in the Baton Rouge area believes in families. However, her suggested idea for legislation that would allow some parents to serve jail time at home isn't resonating with me. I applaud Representative Smith for wanting to keep families together but, in my opinion, the opportunity for abuse of the system is rampant.

Representative Smith's proposal would be to allow non-violent offenders, at the discretion of a judge, to serve time and community service while living at home.

We can't allow people who have broken the law to stay at home in comfort because jail is bad for their family. That is a consequence the lawbreaker should have considered before breaking the law. Jail is supposed to be bad Representative Smith. It's supposed to be a deterrent to crime, not an invitation to catch The Price is Right every day.

I applaud your love and appreciation for families. We agree wholeheartedly on that point. Where we disagree is you appear to want to paint criminals as victims and that's where you're train of thought jumps the tracks of common sense.

Based on your desire to keep the family together how about we just do daycare in prison? See how nonsensical the whole concept sounds when you flip it around? And one other thing, we need to keep "house arrest" sacred for our politicians that break the law since they have families too.

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