[email protected]

I sent this and it never showed up on the e-mail from the list....

In a message dated 11/17/99 6:24:24 AM Pacific Standard Time,
famromo@... writes:

<< Not once he
sees that prison life is so much better than home life. Cable TV,
health clubs, free education, the works. >>

I know this is a popular conception of prison life but it leaves out a
few of the harsher realities, two major ones being beatings by other
prisoners or sometimes guards and rapes. Should these also be the
punishment? This is the reality of our justice system. If any of us think
about any of our own children or ourselves for that matter, being sent to
prison, I believe THOSE things are the fears that scare us most.
Also, if a child's life in prison really is so much better than his home
life, isn't part of the answer to see what can be done to change the home
life? I haven't met a kid yet who would rather be in prison for the cable TV
or the "health clubs."
I believe the U.S. responds too emotionally to these issues and doesn't
want to look at what it would take to truly solve the problems. I guess
that's why we have such a huge percentage of our people locked up.
I am just as capable as anyone else of responding with anger and a desire
for revenge when I hear about horrible things done to people. I don't know
what I would really do if someone hurt or killed someone I love. I know
there is a part of me that would probably want to kill the person myself.
Yet our current laws do not allow that as much as we all might feel that way
to some extent because we recognize that it would make our society more
violent, not less violent. In the same way, I believe that many of the
"solutions" the U.S. has now also make our society more violent.
Here is another thing I think about a lot: people talk so much about how
these kids should be made to take responsibility for what they do wrong. But
these kids didn't just land here from outer space. When is our sick society
going to take responsibility for creating an environment which produces the
kids they're complaining so much about? The previous generations, for all
of their own problems and injustices, did not have kids who did these kinds
of things.
Some like to believe that it's because they beat their kids more and
"didn't put up with this nonsense." However, I remember my own grandmothers
and neither one were harsh at all. They were very loving, warm people who
were always willing to talk, to enjoy kids, to help others, to extend mercy,
to help their kids with prolblems that the kids didn't know how to solve.
Too many kids today are left in situations which they have no IDEA how to
solve. Sure, there are some who do well DESPITE their horrible childhoods.
But don't we want to create an environment in which the tendency is to do
well rather than have it be the exception? Whenever I read about things like
the young boys who pushed the younger boy out of the window because he
wouldn't steal for them, the thing comes to my mind is how strange it is that
just a few years back when I was living in...wherever....or doing...whatever
it was...these kids were just little boys and I wonder what in the world
happened to make them become this way. If we don't start figuring out the
answers to that, we won't ever solve the problem.

Lucy in Calif.