Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, October 20, 1993                   TAG: 9403180010
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A-10   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Short

CRIME BUSTER

The boob tube blares night and day, and some say the volume is too high and some say it's too low, and some want to watch Oprah and some want to watch Donahue, and some say one more spin of the "Wheel of Fortune" will drive them up the wall.

But does a constant cacophony of television constitute cruel and unusual punishment?

Inmates at Virginia's Nottoway Correctional Center say it does. They say they're a captive audience to 151/2 hours a day of mindless television - 17 hours a day on weekends - and it is causing migraines, hypertension, sleep loss and even ear infections from ear plugs. They've filed a lawsuit asking the U.S. District Court in Norfolk to make prison officials turn the darn thing off and pay each of them $800,000 in damages.

We're not saying they have much of a case, but would-be crooks ought to take note.

Run afoul of the law and you, too, may be sentenced to a steady diet of "Welcome Back Kotter" reruns. If that's not a deterrent to crime, what is?