Prison Reform

Your editorial "A New Wave of Executions," (June 19) played on the humane theme that the taking of human life by the State is immoral, and we know that it is. This type of logic, however, is over-simplification, and is like saying we cannot have prison reform unless we get a better class of prisoners! This editorial misses an important ugly fact which mankind has wrestled with since the days of Socrates; and, that is what is to be done with criminals who are a great danger to society?

Re "He found a calling in prison," Column One, July 5 So former Republican Assemblyman Pat Nolan now thinks our state prison system isn't so great. He is typical of the hypocritical Republicans who chant "law and order" and keep upping prison sentences but only until it affects them.

The Earl of Longford, a politician, passionate social reformer and champion of society's outcasts, has died. He was 95. The earl, Francis Aungier Pakenham, died Friday at London's Chelsea and Westminster Hospital, his family said. Born and brought up a Protestant aristocrat and Conservative, he ended up a Socialist, a Roman Catholic and an Irish Nationalist.

Dr. Harold "Fred" Shipman, the reserved English family doctor who exploited his patients' trust to become the country's most prolific mass murderer, was found dead in his prison cell Tuesday morning, hanged by a bedsheet strung around the bars of his cell. Prison officials, who called the death an apparent suicide, said he had been taken off a suicide watch 18 months ago.

There are two ways to break a promise: all at once, short and to the point, perhaps with a word of regret, or over the course of months, in a silent, maybe-yes maybe-no passive-aggressive snub. Sacramento, in its cruel brilliance, managed to use both methods simultaneously as it broke, and continues to break, a promise to fund the transfer of state parolees and prisoners to county control. Too bad it's not just some internal government versus government spat. It's a major breach of faith that could kill long-held hopes for prison reform — and in the process threaten to end the statewide decline in crime.

Stephen Bingham lived as a fugitive for 13 years because he feared he was being set up in the 1971 slaying of prison revolutionary George Jackson, Bingham's attorney, Susan Rutberg, said Tuesday. She told a jammed courtroom in her opening statement that the one-time Berkeley lawyer fled after state officials announced that they had conclusive evidence that he had slipped a gun to Jackson. Bingham is being tried on two counts of murder and one of conspiracy in the Aug.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger raised the serious issue of California's dangerously overcrowded prisons last week. But his timing left many lawmakers rolling their eyes and not taking him seriously. The whole episode smelled a lot like blatant election-year politics, too cute by half. For starters, he called a special legislative session on the prison system five days after a federal court investigator issued a scathing report that accused the governor of backpedaling on prison reform.

Hoping to reduce the number of Californians who cycle in and out of prison, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has quietly signed a bill allowing nonviolent ex-convicts to earn their way off parole early by completing an intensive drug treatment program. The new law marks a significant -- and wise -- change in the state's approach to parole, says an expert who has previously accused the governor of wavering on prison reform.

Rich Dyer, a onetime nuclear foreman for the Department of Defense, tried to bury his former wife alive after she was granted custody of the couple's two children. He's serving a life sentence at the state prison here. Angelo Pleasant, a former wrestler, shot and killed two of his coaches when he caught them arguing over a woman. He's serving two life sentences. But Dyer and Pleasant do more than serve time.

Each weekday morning, Los Angeles County Sheriff's Deputy Ernest Cobarrubias sits at his desk at the Hall of Justice Jail, with a pocket guide to gay bars at his side. One by one, inmates are led into the room, which doubles as the jail barbershop. "When did you last have sex with a woman?" Cobarrubias asks, facing the inmate from across the desk. "What gay bars and bathhouses do you go to?" "How long have you been gay?"