CIRCUMVENTING THREE STRIKES

Shane Reams is an example of why there is a "three strikes" law to eliminate
habitual criminals from society. ["Second thoughts on three strikes' law,"
Dec. 6]. As a mother, I sympathize with his mother, but she is hardly
objective in her appraisal of how the law should be interpreted to only
apply to " third-strike" violent felonies.

Anyone who is a lookout for a drug dealer, as her son was, might just as
well be the one dealing the drugs. The devastation from drug sales is even
worse than a one-time violent attack on someone. The destroyed lives
resulting from drugs affect our while society.

I wish our judges wouldn't circumvent "three strikes" and hope that our
legislators won't change what 72 percent of the voters wanted. I'd rather
pay for more prisons than pay the cost of the revolving door system we had,
which required trying the same lawbreakers for crime after crime against
victim after victim.

Checked-by: Don Beck