Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, May 16, 1990 TAG: 9005160554
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-12 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
The figures quoted in the newspaper are very different from those in a recent newsletter for state corrections employees. The newsletter estimated that at the current rate of incarceration, by the year 2000, 64,000 inmates will be confined, and spoke about how this is good for business. The 35,740 figure told to the public is far different.
Likewise, the figures on assaults on inmates by inmates for fiscal 1989 were quoted as 131, which is ludicrous and can only be the number from one prison. Also absent were the figures on assaults on inmates by guards, which have become very prevalent during recent years under Mr. Murray.
What overcrowding in prison means is: even less access to the already strained programs that are afforded to inmates; the quality of the food becomes even less; health care becomes more strained; more inmates become the victims of assaults and even rapes as the prison authorities scramble for bed space without proper classification of offenders and the individual.
When the nightmare is over for each inmate, he is told good luck and given $25 to make it back out in society.
I just wish for once, someone in the newspaper business would get a real look at what is going on inside the prisons instead of the whitewashed version. If the trend continues, events in England are just a prelude to what is to come here. When finger-pointing time comes, let it be pointed in the direction of the prison authorities and other officials. JAMES E. WATTS CRAIGSVILLE
Editor's note: The 64,000 figure includes about 28,000 projected local jail inmates.
by CNB