THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, September 16, 1994 TAG: 9409150003
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A18 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Letter
LENGTH: Short : 46 lines
Local and national governments are leading everyone to believe that they have the answer to crime: Lock em up and throw away the key.
I am currently incarcerated and will be the first to admit that some people deserve to be locked up forever and a day. But the vast majority of people I come in contact with do not deserve that.
We are people who have made a mistake. Some of us are mentally unstable and shouldn't be in jail or prison but in a mental hospital.
The media and government are trying to make people who commit crimes look like the worst people on Earth. We are no different from you or your sons or your daughters or your nieces and nephews. Like all humans, we make mistakes, and I do believe that most of us should be another chance to live as we should.
Just think about how you would feel if you were given one time only to be late for work, or could only fail one test in school and the penalty for lateness would be a 20- or 30-year suspension from your job or school. That's what it's like if you are incarcerated and hear talk of the state ending parole.
The state should establish programs to educate and train inmates because, whether the public likes it or not, most of the people who are now in prison will be back on the streets. If we don't have the skills or education necessary to make it in today's society what then?
Parole should be made into something that is earned rather than something that is given at random. Inmates should have to put in a 30- to 40-hour work week and also have to receive certificates for completing two to three vocational classes and/or two to three years of counseling in case of violent crime. This way a man can have something and somewhere to start, because once you go to prison upon your release you have to start a whole new life for yourself. If he doesn't have a strong foundation, what kind of life can a man build?
TRAVIS HARRIS
Western Tidewater Regional Jail
Suffolk, Sept. 12, 1994 by CNB