Move to End Prison Amenities

* Re “More Inmate Privileges Fall in Get-Tough Drive,” Feb. 9: Whatever happened to the constitutional provision which calls for the nation’s citizens to not be submitted to cruel and inhuman treatment? The state’s punishment objective is accomplished by the deprivation of liberty in and of itself.

If a person were held in a fabulous mansion, prohibited from leaving at any time and prohibited from seeing friends or family except at designated times, he would suffer punishment equal to any penitentiary.

Those privileges sought to be terminated are minimal and only make conditions tolerable for the staff, more than the prisoners.

JOIE WALLS

Tarzana

* Inmates should not get everything they want just because they cry foul or threaten violence. Maybe, if we make California prisons more like prison and less like a camp, these men will think twice before committing crimes. As it stands now, they want for nothing while incarcerated--drugs, pornography, cable TV and a gym!

The whole idea of being convicted of a felony should mean that you messed up big and you lose many of your rights. Let’s use our energy to protect the rights of the police officers, corrections officers and civilians who work day and night to ensure a safer living environment for all of us.

DEBRA A. UPTON

Valencia

* I’m happy to hear California prison officials are spending their time removing weight benches and law books. I’m glad they won’t let prisoners wear jeans, and grow long hair. After all, it is those long-haired types who commit crime anyway. Given this way of thinking, why are we surprised when convicts, who have had no opportunity to explore their problems other than in their own minds, are released back into a society even more hostile than prison, only to commit crime so they can return to the safety of a jail cell?

Instead of this concentration on punishment, a strategy that has resulted in prison overcrowding, isn’t it time we realized that human beings who want psychological counseling should have the opportunity to receive it so they can try to become productive members of society?

DAVID LYELL

Playa del Rey