This week's feedback

No ‘R’ in ‘CDCR’

About your story, “Prison blues” [“The Front Lines,” Oct. 14]: You do understand that “rehabilitation of prisoners” is one of the cornerstones of the Schwarzenegger / Brown plan to reduce the prison population, as set out in their submittal to the federal three-judge panel in August. Of course, it will be difficult to do that by gutting the rehabilitation programs in the prison system.

I’m not sure how the three-judge panel will be able to believe the Schwarzenegger / Brown “good faith” effort to reduce the prison population and parolee recidivism when they say one thing and do the opposite. Seems to me like the three-judge panel would have to take this kind of cut in rehabilitation programs as an indication that the Schwarzenegger / Brown proposal is a sham.

Cutting this program is insanity, but then, of course, it’s not about sanity or rehabilitation or justice. It’s about money (oh, and getting re-elected for those in the Legislature, which is ultimately about money and power).

Therefore, the Governator has to take money from things that will assist the populace (education, rehabilitation, family support, children’s clinics, colleges, etc.) and give it to the very powerful prison guards’ union. Of course, this union is looking out for one thing: the guards’ high pay and benefits package. Of course, we (as frightened citizens of California) would not need to pay for that whopping union contract if there wasn’t an unlimited resource of prisoners to guard!

One out of every 100 adult Americans is in prison. That alone should tell us something! I don’t think it’s because one-tenth of the U.S. population has criminal tendencies. I think it’s because the prison industrial complex has spent years in collusion with the judicial system (yeah, I know, that’s a pretty pointed statement) to create permanent jobs for themselves.

Something has gone severely wrong with the American culture when we spend more on prisons than we do on education.

Closing the rehabilitation programs in the prison system only fosters recidivism and thereby becomes a vicious circle for those who need help. By the way, it used to be called CDC (California Department of Corrections), and then it was changed to CDCR (California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation). So, are they going to change it back to CDC or keep trying to fool the general populace?

Renee Sherrer-Daly,
Bellingham, Wash.

Satisfied customer

Hello. I just wanted to tell you how much I appreciate your services to the community and the extremely informative listings of the happenings within the county. I also wanted to thank you for carrying alt-comics such as Tom Tomorrow. That genre, as I am certain you are aware, is in dire straits.
I wish the best for your publication, and a final thank you for enriching our lives with an alternative paper that delivers like no other.

Knowing homelessness

Apparently, Mario Tilaro [“Letters,” Oct. 21] has first-hand knowledge of why or how people become homeless. He also seems to have a fast track to how and why people become assholes.

Apparently, Mr. Tilaro never heard that “the allegedly hard-hearted President Reagan” closed most of the state mental hospitals, where some of these humans could have found treatment; I guess he hasn’t heard of any reports from various non-partisan groups that the majority of these homeless people are suffering from various mental disabilities, or maybe, since he knows it all, he doesn’t believe these reports.

After all, if these reports were true, then his lack of understanding and compassion would not have a “softer name,” such as heartless, selfish or cruel, but a more accurate label, such as “monster.”

Phillip E. Banks,
Logan Heights