Letters to the Editor: Keep effective prison policies

Keep effective prison policies Jan.18, 2005 Wis ST. Jrnl The Wisconsin State Journal's Sunday piece on Wisconsin prisons, "Conning ourselves," could be described as "Conning the readers." The charts, grafts and statistics show how crime rates for property and violent crime have dropped dramatically over the last 15 years as the number of criminals incarcerated per 100,000 residents has shot up. But the writer states "the question of how much crime prison prevents is far from settled." Another article -- "Crime has been prevented, but how much?" -- includes a quote from crime expert Todd Clear that "young men who are involved in criminal activity are doing a lot of things in a neighborhood that are not criminal activity." So a guy may be mugging, raping and shooting people, but he takes good care of his dog, calls his mom on Sundays and his car looks great! The weak, worn out arguments of the coddle-the-criminal liberal left are certainly presented at length, but the actual drop in the rate of all crimes cannot be ignored. It mentions that it costs each person in the state $150 to run our prison system. I say that's a bargain to keep the dirtbags from murdering more innocent people like Ericha Von Hoken behind bars for the rest of their lives. The quote with the most common sense in either article came from Assembly Speaker John Gard: "When you see violent crime is on the decline, why would you change your policy?" -- William Richardson, Madison