ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Tuesday, January 21, 1997 TAG: 9701210078
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: PATRICIA L. WEST
YOUR sensationalistic editorial on Dec. 28 (``State prisons heating up'') is what inmates love to read. It gives the publicity they crave to incite disturbances and create chaos.
I would think you would feel a sense of responsibility to the greater good - public safety, protecting the staff inside prisons and reporting the facts - instead of being consistently critical of the Virginia Department of Corrections whenever there is an inmate disturbance.
The blame should be placed on the perpetrators rather than on prison officials. The facts are that assaults on both staff and inmates are down under corrections director Ron Angelone's leadership. The chaos of the 1980s in the Virginia prison system is virtually gone.
Under Angelone's management, for the first time in years, local jails have been substantially relieved of the backlog of inmates for whom the state is responsible - thereby reducing the potential for violence. Editors of The Roanoke Times (and The Virginian-Pilot in Norfolk) have downplayed this very important fact.
Even with the best possible management of our corrections system, there will continue to be violent incidents in Virginia prisons - as there are in every other prison system in the United States, regardless of the policies of the corrections officials.
You cannot lock up thousands of the most violent criminals in the state and expect there will never be problems.
Your editorial suggests that Virginia's inmates are more unhappy now than ever before.
That's because - before the Allen administration - murderers, rapists and armed robbers were being released after serving as little as one-sixth of their sentences. Under Gov. Allen, they are not being released. So, that makes these predators - and those that make excuses for them - unhappy.
Does keeping violent criminals in prison make those prisons more dangerous? Of course it does.
But going back to releasing violent criminals early is not an option. That might make our prisons safer, but it would make our streets and neighborhoods more dangerous.
So while the violent criminals in prison are unhappy about serving much longer prison terms, law-abiding Virginians are safer. And that's far more important.
Patricia L. West, of Richmond, is secretary of public safety for Virginia.
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