THE REALITY OF `CLUB FED'

Editor -- Your June 16 article, ``Club Fed?'' about the federal women's
prison in Dublin was a surprisingly poor piece of journalism that offered
no information that might contradict the prison administration's view of
itself.

As a former prisoner in Dublin, I can speak to a very different reality --
the draconian mandatory minimum sentences for drug offenses under which
women commonly do 10-to-20-year sentences; the racist hundred-fold
disparity in sentencing for powder and crack-cocaine that means that
African-American prisoners are sentenced to much longer terms than their
white counterparts; the fact that most women in federal prisons rarely see
their children because of the great distances families must travel for a
visit.

Human lives are destroyed, families are fractured and our communities
suffer an incalculable loss.

At a time when the trend is toward increasing imprisonment and more
punitive conditions of incarceration, one would hope for a journalistic
commitment to a more complex view of this pressing social issue.

DONNA WILLMOTT

Legal Services for Prisoners With Children San Francisco

Checked-by: Richard Lake