NOT JUST STATISTICS

It saddened me to read Ray Larson's Nov. 22 commentary, "Tough
sentences make state, nation safer," in which he quoted cold
statistics about how the mandatory minimum guidelines have helped cut
crime.

These statistics represent real people who have children and parents.
I know law-breaking should be punished. But the long sentences given
to first-time non-violent offenders are increasing the prison
population at an alarming rate.

An editorial from the Los Angeles Times gave a case in point about a
first-time, non-violent offender -- Weldon Angelos, 25, of Salt Lake
City -- who was given 55 years because he refused to plea bargain. The
judge decried the required term as "unjust, cruel and even
irrational." He has appealed to President Bush to commute the sentence.

Families Against Mandatory Minimums is working with Angelos' family in
appealing this sentence. I'm thankful for people like Sister Cynthia
Brinkman ("In prison, nun takes a spiritual journey," Nov. 20
Herald-Leader). In her six months in the Federal Correctional
Institution in Pekin, Ill., Brinkman wrote about her sadness for the
plight of women who are stuffed into an already overcrowded prison.

She wrote, "People are human, and they make mistakes, but if we're
talking non-violent, we're not talking about a danger to society." Two
or three years in prison for a first-time offender would certainly be
enough. Most women are there on drug charges. Isn't drug
rehabilitation a more humane way to help people turn their lives
around than warehousing them?

Please don't quote statistics, look at precious human
lives.

Leah R. Atkinson,

Lexington