AN UNJUST LAW THAT NEEDS CHANGING

When I read Vincent Lee's letter ("Double standards in sentencing," April
15) I was struck by a number of statements. The first is the seeming
assumption that because police in Pittsfield lay traps for drug dealers by
waiting for them to cross into a school zone, and this has continued for
the last decade or so, Great Barrington residents should suck it up and
allow unfitting sentences to be passed on to them by the same judges in the
same system. Perhaps if Mr. Lee understood the value of changing rules for
the better, he would realize that the actions, however belated, of Great
Barrington residents to change this law which specifically targets
non-violent offenders are beneficial to all and not subject to sour grapes
from another town up north which preferred to do nothing about it.

Second, and perhaps most offensive, is the statement that if Pittsfield
residents were whiter and richer, the residents of a now assumed elitist
Southern Berkshire coalition would have been up in arms. Mr. Lee is
obscuring the issue of this law and its necessity to be changed by
suggesting that Barrington residents don't care what happens in Pittsfield
because of race or money. At the end of his letter, Mr. Lee throws us a
real zinger by equating the mandatory sentences of drugs to those of
firearms. The comparison holds no weight when you consider the issue of
nonviolent crimes versus violent crimes. It's a lot easier to kill someone
if you're holding a gun than it is when wielding a bag of marijuana.
Different crime, different time. Mr. Lee and all residents of Berkshire
County who wish for fair sentencing should join the petition started in
Great Barrington. The issue affects the whole community.

EOIN HIGGINS Olympia, Wa., April 22, 2005 The writer is a former resident
of Great Barrington.