Cutting inmate costs
Monday, April 14, 2008 7:24 AM PDT
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E-mail this articleCutting inmate costs
The Washington state Department of Corrections is costing the taxpayers $55,000 per inmate, per year. The state has more than 16,000 inmates, with inmates in county jails waiting to be transferred to state facilities.
Some of the cost is the cost of feeding and clothing the inmates. These costs could be cut dramatically by the inmates growing their own food. Inmates in Washington used to produce all of their own food and make all of their own clothes. When they produced their own food, the costs were much less, and the inmates ate much better food. At the present, all of the inmate food and clothing are provided by vendors at a very high cost. These costs will go up, due to the cost of all food and clothing going up.
Another cost that could be reduced is the cost of heating and lighting in the prison facilities. With the use of wind generators, especially in Eastern Washington prisons where the wind blows a great deal more, the cost of lighting and heating could be reduced tremendously.
What is wrong with the use of chain gangs to contract for labor jobs along highways and cleaning up parks? Many other states use these ideas and many more to cut the cost of housing state inmates.
Charles Poston
Longview
Where's Doonesbury?
I have refrained from comment on the absence of the Doonesbury comic strip figuring there would be an adequate outcry. I guess I was wrong because I've seen nothing to date.
My family will certainly miss a strip that dealt with poignant, current issues in such an insightful manner. I find it difficult to fathom why we would be offered drivel such as Peanuts, Blondie and Beetle Bailey, but lose a strip dealing with timely issues.
Ray Colwell
Longview
Editor's Note: Doonesbury creator Garry Trudeau has taken a 12-week leave of absence.
A third Bush term?
Sen. John McCain likes to portray himself as an independent sort, not captive or beholden to special interests. He decries the influence of lobbyists and special interests, ear marks and pork, and talks a lot about taking on special interests, but his campaign manager and top advisers are actually lobbyists. The government watchdog group, Public Citizen, says McCain has 59 lobbyists raising money for his campaign, more than any of the other presidential candidates.
The Maverick wishes to continue a failed strategy and pour even billions more into an occupation of Iraq, while we borrow those billions from Chinese banks and leverage our future and our children's future with, not a "tax and spend" economic policy, but a borrow and spend one that is bankrupting the treasury, while lining the pockets of multinational corporations who have set up shop in China, employing foreign workers to make the goods we buy with the rebate checks our government borrows from Chinese banks. And to compound matters, senator straight talk wants to make permanent the tax cuts which have doubled our national debt, made the rich richer and put the squeeze on current and countless middle-class families to come.
If it's a third Bush term you want, by all means, vote for John McCain.
Sandra J. Williams
Longview
Presidential?
Memories of the Clinton fiasco when in office does not speak well for another Clinton take over. Can you just see the sexual deviate Bill doing his thing again, even in the Lincoln bedroom? Didn't they get enough when they trashed the White House as they left? "Hillarity" had no control over him then, and he has not changed. This is very poor taste by the liberal Democrats.
Now what about the other candidate? Barack Hussein Obama, who was born to a black Muslim. His mother divorced and married another Muslim. Family ties most often direct the future of the offspring. This shows up by his 20-year close relationship with the pastor Wright, who hates all white people by his own words from the pulpit of Obama's church. We just can't accept or take a chance on this. Only the extreme liberals would accept him.
That leaves John McCain as the safe candidate. He has fully shown that he is devoted to the well-being and future of these United States and the world as the troubled nations try to overcome their problems. He has had ample time as a senator to be able to steer our country and not abuse the office. I believe McCain, as of now, is the logical choice.
Donald Eugene McWain
Longview
It should be the law
In this day and age, with the average taxpayer under financial pressure to meet their current financial household needs, it should be the law that once a year every local governmental agency that receives any portion of their funding as a result of a levy of tax assessment on real or personal property be required to publish in the local newspaper of their operating district a complete and fully detailed listing of actual sources and uses of funds.
How many times have we heard our friends ask where all the money goes? For example: the recent Castle Rock and Vader school districts funding issue. I believe it was reported that the spokesperson for the Castle Rock schools mentioned something like being pleased with the last vote of support for the operations levy that passed under the recent change to a less than supermajority vote. Now the Castle Rock school spokesperson is saying the legislators failed Castle Rock in regard to the Vader School District annexation.
Shouldn't the Castle Rock district have made sure the funding was legally binding and in place before agreeing to the annexation? If I, or any other family, was going to go out and buy a second home, my guess is the bank involved would require some basic information before agreeing to lend the money. In this case, the taxpayer is once again the bank.
Peter L. Moore
Castle Rock
Message is overlooked
In response to Philip Portwood's April 5 letter, I feel sorry that he did not get my true message (March 10 letter), as I was pointing out some disadvantages of an out-of-town emergency vet - traffic, on time, people who don't drive, etc, — not my unwillingness, as he states.
Aside from that, there are 13 vets in the Longview-Kelso area (one being a dentist). If each vet took one month out of the year to be on emergency call after hours (special phone number) with technicians willing, the price is worth it and payment due then only. People who can't or won't pay for service that is between them and the vet (pertaining to Portwood criticizing these people). I would think those people are the minority.
For most of us who comment or complain — whether it be about a dog park, new senior center or 24-hour emergency vet call number — it is all for the purpose to better our lives and community. It's not a demand, as Portwood states.
Angela Piland
Kelso
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