Changes needed to alleviate problems in prison system

Spectrum, by Otis M. East

I am writing in response to several recent articles in the paper about the district attorney's office needing more funding and the overcrowding of the prisons, which all ties into the budget cuts for educational programs and activities. As Jeremiah Bartz stated in the Feb. 15 article "Where's the cash? Where are the toilets?" It's true if they keep cutting the school budgets they're just going to be putting more people in jail. These children will be uneducated and bored and just be getting into trouble, but, I believe that that is the plan.

In response to the article I read by Daniel Spoth that Sen. Lyda Green wants to build another prison to alleviate the overcrowding, they tried that already and it didn't work. Palmer Correctional Center has been being used as a pre-trial for many years now. The plan when they built the new Anchorage jail was to move the pre-trial inmates there and turn P.C.C. Medium back into a sentence facility. All they did was fill up the Anchorage jail and kept the P.C.C. a pre-trial. It is still operating as a pre-trial. It would appear that this state's motivation is for financial gain by placing as many people in jail as they can. They're even making plans for that in the future, such as the custody investigators putting children in abusive homes or mental health facilities on Ritalin to get them to become dependent on drugs. And of course the biggest one, cut the school budget so that they will be uneducated; plus this keeps them from being smart enough to fight the system because. The prison system is a very large money maker for this state. I don't know if people are aware, but the state has cut the treatment programs in the prisons now, so that means less inmates are going to get rehabilitated, and if it is not about rehabilitation what is it about?

A couple years ago I wrote some letters to different factions to attempt to make them aware of some of the corruption within our legal system and means of alleviating the overcrowding problems. Out of the 11 that I sent these letters to, only one responded to it and said that they could do nothing. Lyda Green is one of the people I sent these letters to and she never even responded. One of the things that I suggested was to have couples that are involved with domestic violence ordered to anger management and or alcohol treatment together so that they can become sober and learn how to communicate, then they would be able to teach their children these skills and eventually practically eliminate domestic violence altogether. Also another way to alleviate the overcrowding is for the state to stop violating people's constitutional rights. For instance, where I am from if the police are called out, they will ask the victim if they want to press charges, if the victim says no then there is nothing that can be done. But in Alaska the state automatically picks up the charges and subpoenas the victims to testify and in domestic violence cases this destroys families. It is against a person's right to choice and privacy for the state to pick up the charges if you wish not to have charges against that other person.

Also the third-party custody issue is a violation of your rights because by placing a person on third party makes the statement that you are guilty of something and need to be watched, which is the opposite of innocent until proven guilty. Many people are sitting in jail because they can't find a third party or the state won't approve their third party. Of course the taxpayers are paying the way to house all these people, so instead of actually doing something about it they're just going cut other things in order for the taxes to keep being fleeced by our own state. In a law course that I took it stated that it is the duty of the people to revolt against a corrupt government, but our government is too powerful for the people to do so. Even if they tried they would just be convicted to treason and put in jail, therefore perpetuating the problem. The answer to it all is just put them in jail and we keep the troublemakers under submission and make money at the same time off our citizen's taxes.

Otis M. East is a Wasilla resident.