The Release of Singleton

Gov. George Deukmejian is concerned that the release of rapist Lawrence Singleton into a community could provoke a “mob” action. Of course it would.

After all, what is a “mob,” except a group of people who feel so strongly about an issue that they band together to protest it, and in some cases to take drastic action to prevent it? (The Boston Tea Party was, in fact, a “mob” action.)

The governor should be concerned not so much that a “mob” would form, but why . The people involved simply do not want Singleton to live among them. And who can blame them?

No community should be asked to accept Singleton. Here is a man who had all the rights of citizenship in his community and who, of his own free will, gave up those rights when he chose to cut off a girl’s arms after he had raped her. True, he has spent some time in prison, but he has not paid for his crime. He can never pay for it until he can find some way to give that girl back her arms.

And no community should be asked to gamble that Singleton, once free, would not repeat his crime. That is simply too big a risk.

An ironic counterpoint to this situation is that the U.S. Supreme Court has just ruled that authorities can keep an arrested suspect in custody even before that person has been tried and convicted of a violent crime if the judge is convinced that release on bail would create a safety risk for the community. Yet one who has already been tried and convicted of a truly horrible crime can be turned loose after only a few years in prison.

There is something terribly out of balance here.

LILLIAN MONEY

Manhattan Beach