Fewer criminals equal less crime

Re “Miles to go for L.A. justice,” July 6

Joe Domanick must have squirmed when he wrote, “In fact, America’s (and L.A.’s) crime rates are at record lows -- yet the U.S. prison population has risen every year for 30 years.” It is simple math and logic to note that crime is way down because incarcerations are way up. Detention works. More criminals are in prison, for longer periods of time. We are all much safer because of it.

Time will tell whether society ever chooses to invest more money in prevention-intervention aspects of the criminal justice system, and whether California’s three-strikes law will ever be fine-tuned, as our great district attorney, Steve Cooley, envisions.

In the interim, enjoy the much-safer streets while you have them. They are safer because police, prosecutors and judges are doing the job we have asked them to do.

Greg Meyer

Los Angeles

The writer is a retired captain of the Los Angeles Police Department.

The root causes of crime are rather simple: poor values. Prayer and paddling have been discouraged by supposedly well-intentioned people.

It is a tragedy that we are building more prisons to house these creatures. But contrary to Domanick’s delirium, most actually are guilty. The three-strikes law has worked to reduce crime by reducing the number of criminals on the streets.

The one element of truth in this article was the admission that solutions to this problem are by now extremely difficult to implement. An increase in the number of talented pastors could be the best investment society could make.

If only two of the Ten Commandments were followed (don’t steal and don’t murder), we would see an improvement. The solutions are difficult, but they are not complicated.

Mark Thornbury

Burbank