More on Elderly Prisoners Who Remain Behind Bars

The article on the aging and infirm in California’s prisons was disturbing on two levels (“Dying on Our Dime,” by Sandra Kobrin, June 26). It’s more expensive to house and provide medical care for aging, ill prisoners than it is to keep healthy inmates behind bars. But as the article noted, “Californians overwhelmingly supported the three-strikes law.” Californians want criminals who repeat their heinous crimes locked up for good. Period. So why do some California lawmakers seem to be trying to find ways to circumvent this?

The article also was shockingly unbalanced. It quoted members of several nonprofit organizations seemingly dedicated to letting convicted felons out of prison. The only person quoted in the story who did not advocate releasing elderly inmates was a Department of Corrections bureaucrat. Where was the victims’ point of view?

A more successful telling of this story would have illustrated why these people are in prison, and offered a middle-of-the road solution that would satisfy both the state budget and California voters. Instead it illustrated how California lawmakers aren’t listening or solving problems.

Evelyn Jerome

Via the Internet

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I was the prosecutor of Norma Jean Jackson, one of the women pictured in the article. Kobrin has explanations for three of the inmates that imply they perhaps shouldn’t be in prison. Helen Loheac “was just doing her troubled son a favor in handing off a wad of cash to a man.” Frank Parker murdered a man “who he believed was having an affair with his wife.” Clyde Hoffman killed “his girlfriend about 18 years ago, an act he committed while drunk.”

Interestingly, Kobrin didn’t tell us what Norma Jean Jackson did. Well, I will. In 1975, under the name of Norma Armistead, she slit the throat of a pregnant woman and stole her live baby by caesarean section. (Norma previously had stolen another baby while she was an obstetrics nurse at a Kaiser hospital.) She was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole.

Perhaps Kobrin would like to have Norma live with her. Maybe she would like to have an aged and infirm Charlie Manson in her home. Those people are in prison for life for a reason. Keep them there. I’m willing to pay for it.

David R. Ross

L.A. Deputy District Attorney

(retired)

Los Angeles

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Would those opposed to incarcerating senior citizens also oppose jail time for convicted Mississippi ex-Klansman Edgar Ray Killen? He meets their criteria: 80 years old, wheelchair-bound, on oxygen, apparently no longer a threat to anyone. And should we cease all efforts to hunt down, try and imprison surviving Nazi war criminals? They’re at least in their 80s now, probably frail and harmless. Why even bother? Just think of the state budget savings! Thankfully, our elected leaders and a majority of citizens are right to demand that “justice” should mean something much more than cost/benefit calculations.

Jodie Munden

San Clemente

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Thanks for your extensive article. Another example of God laughing at us.

Rob Cantin

Inglewood