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<title> Laboratory Convicts </title>
You're walking down an eerie aisle in a laboratory. On each side there are cages, hundreds of them, and it doesn't seem to have an end. Several pairs of sad, lonely eyes looks out on you from behind the bars. Some of the animals lay on their sides, shaking in some unimaginable pain. Their faces lights up with fear as you approach them, and they scream.

The next thing you know, you're walking down a corridor in another building, and you hear laughter. The people in this place eat good food, sleep in nice beds, earn some money, watch television, work out in the gym and read good books. They have it all. They have to stay in the building, though. These men and women have all done terrible things. They have robbed people, mistreated animals, been dealing with illegal business or maybe they've even killed people.

The animals in the beginning are laboratory animals, they are trapped in cages that is too small, they are being tied down and force-fed chemicals and poisons, just so that we humans will know the effects, and side-effects, of some drug. Why not do the experiments on the prisoners instead? Let's think about it;

If the laboratory animal is in pain due to the experiment, you have to cut the animal open to see the effects of the drug. A convict, on the other hand, can tell you exactly when, where and how it hurts, and thereby help the scientists to do their work faster. Also, you wouldn't have to test the product once more to find out if it's harmless to people, because you would get the human side-effects at the same test.The animals are born into the world of pain, and it's not fair. They haven't done anything wrong. Why do humans treat their co-beings so badly? We're supposed to be the superior race of this planet! 

The people in the jails are, apart from the animals, not innocent. They have done many different things, but those are not good things. Some of the people are in jail for life, and some even for death. It is mostly these people I'm talking about. The ones who are sentenced to death could be given a choice; either die, or let science use their body. I'm not suggesting that the testing should be painful or humiliating, the convicts would be treated kindly. It would be a great way to make up for the damage they've caused society. Why should murderers and rapists have a better life than little innocent animals? The tests should be performed on those who deserve it!

The fact that something like that awaits you when you go to jail might make people more afraid, and not very eager to commit a crime. In this world, the jails are good. So good that some of the homeless people on the streets commit crimes just to have a roof over their head in the winter. I think that is absurd. The prison should be a dreaded place, a place you don't want to go to. But in our society I can understand that the crimelevel is very high, because you live a better life in jail.If we were to introduce this type of punishment, maybe it would discourage the minor criminals, and perhaps the major criminals too. 

Of course we will need animal testing as well. I have no problem with pharmaceutical use of the animals. It's the cosmetic tests I don't like. They pour mascara in the rabbit's eyes, force-feed the guinea pig with nailpolish, rub sunblock on the mice's backs and let them lay under a hot lamp until their skin boils. I love animals, it hurts me so much to know that they are suffering. These unnecessary tests could easily be done on convicts. Let them eat skinlotion and spray hairspray in their eyes.I'm for more severe punishments, and this is one of them. It sounds heartless, but think about what we are doing to the animals, if that isn't heartless, then what is? Next time you walk down that laboratory aisle, you may notice a big difference; the cages are almost all empty. And that's because the laboratories don't need as many animals as before. Thanks to the new project, millions of animals won't suffer, and the aisle won't be so eerie.
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