When you hear about the outrageous accusations against Wall Street icon, now shamed, Bernard Maddoff, regarding his $50 billion Ponzi scheme and the corrupt thinking Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich and his peddling of Obama's Senate seat, it almost makes you want to bring back the firing squad because their offenses are almost treasonous.

Are we not in the midst of a financial battle of historic proportion? If the charges against them hold true, have they not destroyed the lives of thousands of people, not to mention the integrity of both the political and financial systems at a time when our nation is in crises?

Unfortunately, as they used to quip in another time; "hanging is too good for them!"

I have another solution for them and all white collar criminals doing soft time, even if it is a long time, PUT THEM TO WORK!

When Enron's chief Ken Lay dropped dead of a heart attack many people had the initial reaction of feeling cheated. Here was the head of a company that had destroyed employee's retirement accounts, lost shareholders their money, and lied about everything they were doing throughout the whole process, and he seemed to have escaped proper judgement. Many were frustrated to not see him put behind bars for a long, long time.

Now some of the same people will be able to get what they were hoping for. Jeff Skilling, the former chief of Enron who was known for spinning the image of Enron's greatness, will spend 24 years behind bars.

Does that seem like enough? $60 billion worth of company vanished, thousands of employees with almost nothing to show for their life's work versus 24 years?

The sentences used to actually be less. Back in the Savings and Loans days sentences of 1 to 4 years were the norm, according to this article that looks at sentences of criminal CEO's then and now. But in the 2000s white collar crime comes with greater sentencing lengths. Timothy Rigas of Adelphia: 20 years, WordCom's Bernard Ebbers: 25 years, and Tyco's Mark Swartz: 8-25 years. At the very least people like Skilling no longer face a mere slap on the wrist.

That being said, CNN's related poll shows that people still think that sentencing for people like Tyco's chief are still not long enough.

Do you think Skilling's punishment is justice served, or that it was too lenient? Vote in our poll or jump into the discussion in the comments.