Regarding the Friday letter, “Inmates not babied, or rehabilitated”: The writer thinks most inmates can be rehabilitated. Many professional criminals are self-destructive in some ways and know they will return to prison. I have interviewed hundreds of them in about three dozen prisons in the United States.
Many inmates have already committed hundreds of felonies before they graduate to state prison. These successful criminals become sociopaths who develop a complete disregard for their victims. For them, spending a little time outside prison is like going on an all expenses paid vacation, but they know they will eventually be caught and sent back to be with their friends.
The real problem is failure to deal with these people before they become professionals. For example, you have to get caught stealing seven cars in this state before you must go to state prison for auto theft. Our failure to bring life-changing consequences on young criminals for their first offense when they are teenagers often demonstrates to them that crime pays, and it’s fun besides.
Many inmates seem to get tired of the swinging gate prison life at about age 40. They finally realize the system may not defeat them, but there is a better way, and eventually they rehabilitate themselves by their better choices. Efforts at “treatment, education and rehabilitation,” before they come to that realization are a waste of time.
We have lots of granite in the Cascades, and the highway department needs lots of crushed rock. Maybe making big ones into little ones with a 12-pound hammer would allow inmates to get into less trouble during the daytime and sleep better at night until they reach age 40.
STAN WALKER
Freeland
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