The defendant, a former police official named Wiley Davis, Jr., sat in a North Carolina courtroom, awaiting sentencing on a fraud conviction. Davis could select a 90-day jail term, followed by probation. Or he could choose a three- year prison term.

Davis was no dummy. He chose the three-year prison term--and quickly became the symbol of a broken criminal justice system.

Davis chose prison because he knew that overcrowding in North Carolina's prisons guaranteed that he would serve only two weeks of his three-year sentence. That's right: Two weeks, and his debt to society would be paid in full.

But Wiley Davis chose prison for another reason that had nothing to do with the length of his sentence--and it's the reason North Carolina voters may change their state constitution this Election Day.

For years I've been telling people that the toughest thing we can do to those who commit crimes is to place them in community punishments. Community punishment demands that criminals hold down a job, pay back their victims, and stay off drugs and alcohol.

A lot of skeptics have said to me, "Okay, Chuck, community punishments may be appropriate in some cases, but it can't possibly be tougher than prison."

But offenders know something most of the rest of us don't: Often, it's the community service that's toughest.

In North Carolina, Wiley Davis's case spotlighted the fact that criminals can and do choose prison over community punishment. A lot of people thought that the short prison sentence was the sole reason why offenders like Davis prefer prison. While a short prison sentence can be a factor, North Carolinians are now seeing that it's not the only reason.

After Davis was sentenced in 1993, North Carolina passed a tough sentencing law that forced offenders to serve 85 percent or more of their sentences. Did this stop prisoners from choosing prison? Not on your life. Why? Because compared with community punishment, prison can be easy. Offenders can sit around watching TV while their sentences run down. By contrast, in community service programs offenders must work, stay off drugs, support their families, and make restitution to their victims--conforming to a much tougher regimen.

Right now, North Carolina's offenders can choose prison over community punishments because the law requires the offender's consent before judges can impose a sentence not enumerated in the state constitution.

That's why Justice Fellowship, an arm of Prison Fellowship, has teamed up with North Carolina's governor, attorney general, law enforcement officers, and victims' rights groups to support Ballot Issue Number Two. This ballot measure would amend the state constitution to allow judges to punish offenders through restitution and community punishment in addition to prison. It would let judges, not offenders, decide the most appropriate punishment for the crime.

I urge all of our North Carolina listeners to vote for Ballot Issue Number Two. And I urge our listeners in other states to find out what their state laws say about community punishment.

If judges are allowed to make the punishment fit the crime, future offenders like Wiley Davis will discover that if they do the crime, they won't be allowed to just lie around doing the time.