OVERCROWDING IS RESULT OF FAILED DRUG WAR

Editor, Commonwealth:

I am responding to the editorial column by Tim Kalich, "Job losses
cloud prison judgment," published February 1. I could not agree more.

The very idea of opening a prison facility to house inmates from
across the country is obscene and would be referred to as insanity at
best.

What is Haley Barbour thinking? Do we really want all these murderers,
rapists, child molesters and all sorts of other criminals shipped in
from other states? I can speak for most every citizen when I shout a
very loud, "No, we do not!"

I have visited a loved one in a Delta prison and have seen firsthand
the criminal activities committed by the prison guards themselves.
Because their pay is so very low and are usually paid at the first of
the month, many of them, especially toward the end of the month,
resort to smuggling in drugs to inmates to supplement the guards'
incomes. This is common practice, and it happens in every prison
system, especially in low-income areas such as the Mississippi Delta.

In fact, we would not even have a prison overcrowding problem in the
first place in Mississippi or in the entire country if people would
just come to their senses and educate themselves about the horrors of
this debilitating and failed drug war.

A few sorely needed jobs in the community of this nature will do so
much more harm than good. Every citizen in the area should do
everything in their power to stop this travesty.

Anita T. Mayfield

Nettleton