AMERICAN PRISONS

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and President Bush may be comfortable
lying to the world about the fact that the prisoner abuse is not the image
of America, but they can't lie to the families of American prisoners in
American prisons. These same kinds of things are happening in our prisons.
Why does it always take a videotape before anyone believes it is a horror
in itself?

Remember Brazoria County in Texas, Mr. President? You were the governor
when that tape of abuse surfaced in 1997. For a year and a half, letters of
abuse had been coming out of that prison by Missouri prisoners and their
families, and everyone looked the other way, stating that it had been
investigated and there was no proof of any abuses happening.

Americans need to wake up. This refusal to see what's going on in our own
country is detrimental to all our futures.

Dolores Owen

Kansas City