Building More Prisons in California

* Rodney Blonien’s commentary, “Build Smarter Prisons for Soaring Inmate Population” (Aug. 15), is exactly what one would expect from a past undersecretary of the California Youth and Adult Correctional Agency. In fact, Blonien’s article depicts exactly what advocates have been alleging for years, that the Department of Corrections is riddled with mismanagement that creates their own dependency and job security. His comment “we don’t imprison enough” is indicative of their mentality. Likewise his comment that “for every 100 felons arrested in California for serious crimes, only eight receive prison time” is not only false but seriously misleading. The only smart statement Blonien made was “better programs also are needed to help the transition of parolees back into society.”

The answer is not to build more prisons but to properly manage the ones we have. The prisons under the current management manufacture criminals at an alarming rate. Everything imaginable today is a crime. We are taking first-time lawbreakers and small-time violators and throwing them into the snake pits of the world, forcing them to live with our most undesirable element. We chastise, condemn and beat them to a pulp and then release them and expect them to be good little boys and girls. How self-defeating.

Whipping the inmates only adds gasoline to the fire. Correction is needed, not condemnation. It’s really ironic that we call our penal institutions’ management the “Department of Corrections.” Exactly what is it that they are correcting? No, we don’t need smarter prisons, we need smarter managers.

JEROME F. VALENTA

Bakersfield

* The prison problem could be solved in an instant if the legislators had any guts. Decriminalize drugs and pardon any nonviolent drug offenders.

Treat addicts to drugs which are currently illegal the same way we do tobacco addicts. Just don’t let corporate America replace the current drug lords by advertising drugs. What Blonien is proposing is just one more step in the decline of the United States.

RICHARD FOY

Redondo Beach