ueaday Appil R5, 1989
ZWBAISINEWS
8S 29
OPINIONS
Wanted: Punishment that fits crime
tening to music. They should work off their
Felons go first-class as taxpayers spend debt to society. Let's have some justice for
a change. Prison ought to be more than
The teenagers
accused of bru-
talizing the lavishly though futilely for criminal jus-
young woman
in Central Park Council Majority Leader Peter Vallone or
and leaving her someone in authority please explain why
the most comty, ever built in this country.
milk and corn are staples that could keep
the cost of feeding the guests down."
Suggestions to make punishment fit
tice. Will Gov. Cuomo or Mayor Koch or just another welfare program. It ought to crime get bogged down in considerations
be a powerful disincentive to crime.
Must inmates reside in Taj Mahals that
to die probably violence-prone youths should be scared of cost millions? Reader Walter Steier of
Brooklyn, a retired cop who served in the
Navy in World War II, advocates Quonset
huts made of prefabricated corrugated
metal as the solution to prison overcrowd-
ing. "Quonset huts housed American ser-
vicemen in the Aleutian Islands and Ice-
Prison doesn't frighten them. And why think twice. Kids might be more inclined land, where temperatures were below
zero, and in the South and Central Pacifie,
of race, poverty, eivil liberties and other
distractions. This is a shame. Crime, not
race or poverty or repression, is what ter-
rorizes New Yorkers. Most New Yorkers of
all races are good citizens who wish to live
in peace. Likewise most poor people. Many
criminals, like Ivan Boesky and Stanley
Friedman, are not poor. By all means put
Ivan and Stanley on a chain gang
Crime causes poverty and aggravates ra-
cial tensions. Crime drives out business,
BILL
REEL
will be convict-
ed and sent to
prison for sev- lion? Living conditions will be better than
or deterred from crime by the prospect of
incarceration in a jail that costs $237 mil-
eral years to lift weights, watch TV, make
phone calls and eat and sleep at taxpayer
expense. No wonder they laugh in court.
home for most of them.
Maybe public punishment of criminals is
the way to go to make potential predators
to obey the law if they saw their older
cleaning up
should it? Conviets today do their deuces
and treys - maybe a pound for something brothers doing hard labor
really bad like this gang rape-bludgeoning garbage-strewn lots, for instance, or scrub-
- and return to the street in good health bing graffiti off buildings
with big muscies courtesy of taxpayers pervision of gun-toting correction officers.
who keep up the prison gym.
In New York, a prison isn't a deterrent
where temperatures were above 100 de- shoppers, residents, builders. Crime de-
grees," says Walter. "They also housed stroys neighborhoods. If we could curb
prisoners of war.
crime we could make progress on other so-
eial problems.
The terrible tragedy of the young woman
assaulted in Central Park can't be undone.
For her and her family, New Yorkers can
only express sorrow and offer prayers.
For ourselves, though, we can pressure
public officials and mayoral candidates for
radical reforms to make the criminal jus-
tice system do what it does not do now -
deter crime.
under the su-
"Quonset huts could be constructed here
and used as prisons. The Army and the
Kids should be afraid of the law. They Navy could put the huts up in a matter of
to crime, it's a real estate deal. The 1,000- should quake with fear at the thought of hours. There is plenty of barren wasteland
bed maximum security facility proposed going to prison. It would be good for them available. I can think of a little island off
Canarsie that would make a fine site.
Chain gangs? Maybe the time has come.
for Staten Island will cost a minimum of and good for society if the criminal justice
$237 million, not including the purchase
price of the land, according to city offi-
system was a deterrent to crime instead of There are dozens of such locations.
something to joke about in court. Convicts
"Quonset huts would make secure, low-
cials. At $237,000 per bed, the Staten Is- should do constructive heavy-lifting for the cost jails. The sites would be surrounded
with barbed wire. Bread, beans, oatmeal,
land jail will be the costliest, and no doubt city instead of laying up in cells all day lis-
2/20
2014
