PUZZLING OMISSION:
Dear New Citizens Press,
I have noticed in the last couple of editions that there has not been a puzzle. I enjoy doing the puzzles and love reading your newspaper. What happened? I thought it was just left out by mistake. I would like to see it back in the paper.
Robert Gray
Lansing, MI
Dear Mr. Gray,
I thank you for your feedback. It is so important that people like yourself call to make your wants and concerns known. We took the puzzle out because we did not think that people were utilizing it. With your imput and the imput of others The New Citizens Press is always willing to try new things and bring old things back. So we have included the puzzle back on Page 7. Your continued feedback is important for the success of the paper.
Rina Risper
PRISON PROBLEM
Programs for reentry are not enough! No program can help a person become re-acclaimed to society if the prisoner was maltreated in prison. We spend tons of money isolating prisoners where they spend 23 hours a day in a cell with nothing to do. No access to libraries, or more than a few books. Most outside time in some prisons is strictly controlled in little cages with no room to run around. Visits are done through glass walls with no physical contact. This is inhumane. We have better treatment in of animals in zoos.
I think we need prisons more like Riverbend institution in Tennessee.
Prisoners have access to libraries, training programs,and more. If prisoners have had good behavior, they’re allowed to leave their cells and go outside to get fresh air. They have access to training programs, and education programs, like GED and Adult Basic Education. There are also vocational classes available for printing, commercial cleaning, industrial maintenance, cabinet making/millwork and computer information systems. TRICOR, the prison industry, also manages a data entry plant and print shop at the prison. Inmates not involved in academic vocation, or industry programs are required to work in support service roles throughout the facility.
These kind of programs offer prisoners a chance to get training that will give them skills when they get out of prison. If we just isolate them into small rooms for 20 years, with no social contact, no control of their lives, and little access to any training, then we’ll get exactly what we deserve. It’s no wonder that there is such a high recidivism at some prisons, when prisoners come out worse then when they came in.
With prisons like Riverbend there’s a good chance that these prisoners will come out far better, trained, with an education. That, to me, is the real answer.
We can no longer treat prisoners like captive animals and isolate them from everything, and then act like they’re supposed to come out any better then when they went in if we don’t give them training.
We can no longer treat prisoners in ways that would get zoos shut down. As long as prisoners are treated like animals, or worse, and then expect them to stay human, and then come out humane.
Randall Banks
Lansing, Michigan