Gang Sentencing

Your Metro section (Feb. 1) featured an article on the sentencing of five gang members to life in prison without parole for the murder of two teen-age girls. The murderers appeared to be looking forward to a life of ease, courtesy of John Q. Public. To provide free room and board to those five able-bodied men for the rest of their lives will add about $3 million to the approximately $700 million that the state of California now pays for the capitalization and maintenance of penal facilities.

I think our judicial system clearly needs tweaking when the taxpayers are being punished more than the criminals.

WILLIAM R. DUNBAR, Cerritos