Letters to the Editor

I've had it.

Dieter Zerressen
Denver

The hard cell: In her May 30 letter, Lynn Harris suggested that we lock up people against their will for drugs, alcohol and prostitution. She asked, "Couldn't some of [the vacant space] be used to house this type of offender?"

These people are not offending others just by being alcoholics, drug-takers or prostitutes; they are only hurting themselves. Only if they drive drunk or impaired or throw condoms on someone's front porch or commit other such offenses do they become a public nuisance -- for the acts committed. Oddly enough, we call ourselves and aspire to be a "free country." We can't just go around locking up everybody whose lifestyle we don't like. We already have more people locked up than France, Germany, Great Britain, Japan, Singapore and Holland combined. We have the largest percentage of people behind prison bars than any nation in the world (ten times the rate of most industrial countries, according to the book Affluenza).

All drugs, as well as prostitution, should be legalized, so that: 1) Drug addicts would be able to get help instead of being punished for their health and psychological problems; 2) Our taxpayer dollars wouldn't be wasted on incarcerating these people; 3) We could free up more money and space to lock up the child molesters, rapists, murderers and other violent criminals who are a danger to society; and 4) We could live truer to our ideal of being a "free country" -- one that leaves its citizens alone unless they have shown that they can't be trusted to live with others in society.

Benton Wheeler via the Internet