Talk about a cry for help: Timothy J. Bowers robbed a Columbus OH bank of $80, handed the money over to a security guard, and waited for the police to come and arrest him. In court on October 11, he pleaded guilty and told the judge that he would like a three-year sentence – just enough time to get him to the age of eligibility for Social Security benefits. The judge graciously obliged, demonstrating compassionate conservativism at its warm-hearted best.

Bowers, almost 63 years old, is no wacko. He passed a court-ordered psychological exam and explained that he had not been able to find a new job since his old one ended when his employer’s company closed in 2003.

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There’s nothing new about using about prison as a solution to poverty. Over 2 million Americans are presently incarcerated, the great majority of them from the lowest income brackets. In fact, incarceration is expanding as the welfare state shrinks: while the U.S. offers 2 million prison beds, it provides public housing to only 1.3 million households, and that number is dropping rapidly.

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The cost of incarcerating an elderly inmate is about $69,000 a year. A compassionate – or merely rational—state would give Bowers a stipend to live on and save its prison beds for actual bad guys.