THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, July 16, 1995 TAG: 9507140015
SECTION: COMMENTARY PAGE: J4 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Letter
LENGTH: Short : 31 lines
The irony is palpable: Convicted sex-offenders, about to have their therapeutic program canceled, advise our duly elected governor to ``make a decision that is morally correct instead of politically advantageous'' (news, June 22). Even greater is the irony that they are right!
Governor Allen's counsel to these twisted men is to ``heal themselves,'' a grand strategy in an ideal world (where sex crimes would be nonexistent).
My experience as a former prison chaplain suggests that autohealing is not likely to happen. The governor's assumption that doubling prison sentences (at about $18,000 per man-year) would be more effective and less costly than the $200,000-a-year program is truly an example of new math having failed.
Whether we like it or not, most of these rapists, sodomites and child molesters are going to walk our streets again. Without intervention, many of them will repeat their hideous crimes. We cannot be certain that intervention will help. But is the risk to our daughters and sons of not providing treatment worth the dubious savings?
WAYNE T. BLYTHE
Chesapeake, July 6, 1995 by CNB