Letters: What the prisoners are telling us

Re “Mass protest sweeps state prisons,” July 10, and “The strike against solitary,” July 10

The fact that many prisoners in California are treated inhumanely by the state shocks the conscience and haunts the soul.

It’s not “tough on crime” to keep inmates in solitary confinement or to fail to provide prisoners basic humane services; to the contrary, it contributes to the high recidivism that affects us all. The answer is to get smart on crime and be humane to those incarcerated.

Until then, our civilization can be judged by walking into a prison.

Jeffrey Lowe

Beverly Hills

It isn’t unethical or inhumane to save the lives of people under the government’s responsibility.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) says that detainees at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, are being inhumanely force-fed; one Times letter writer this week called force-feeding torture. A physicians group calls force-feeding unethical.

Inmates across the state are currently refusing meals. If medically appropriate, the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation should initiate force-feeding if the protest goes on long enough to endanger their lives.

In hospitals, medical personnel insert tubes into our bodies if our lives are at risk; consent is secondary. In a humane society, starving detainees and inmates require the same intensive medical intervention.

Dan Anzel

Los Angeles

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