Behind Bars

To the Editors:

When considering prisons [Sept. 13], it should be kept in mind that every inmate is there by choice. He made the decision to do time the moment he committed the crime.

Alan Sergeant

San Diego

Your article "What Are Prisons For?" lays bare the improvidence of our attitude toward criminal justice. The deadening boredom and persistent threat of assault that accompany prison life are transforming nonviolent offenders into violent ones. Further, the ultimate costs to society are ominous, both in dollars expended to build and maintain the prisons and in the rising number of victims of repeat offenders. Surely a system can be designed that will select criminals who are worthy of alternative forms of punishment, like restitution or community service, and will still incarcerate those who have a history of violence or repeated criminality. Such a reform would inject a measure of reason into an area largely ruled by emotion.

Mark O. Hatfield

U.S. Senator, Oregon

Washington, D.C.

Our genes and our environment control our destinies. The idea of conscious choice is ridiculous. Yes, prisons should be designed to protect society, but they should not punish the poor slobs who were headed for jail from birth.

Paul R. Andrews

Gushing, Me.

The ultimate irony of the prison system, which I help administer, is that we are confining increasing numbers of individuals who could not function in our heterogeneous, competitive, heterosexual society that tests our ability to make decisions each day. To solve the problem, we place these offenders in a homogeneous, boring, homosexual environment in which most decisions are made for them. Then we turn them out into the world and are outraged that they fail to make it.

John J. Dahm

Assistant Director for Adult Services

Department of Correctional Services

State of Nebraska

Lincoln, Neb.

Manville's Cop-Out

The Manville Corp.'s attempt to slither away from litigation [Sept. 13] has moral and ethical ramifications that far out weigh the legal and environmental issues. Big businesses should assume responsibility for the devastation they have caused to countless families.

Kathleen Mathews Straub

Mesa, Ariz.

The suits against Manville, which almost total the company's assets, constitute a kind of ex post facto punishment. The litigation is ruining a company for making products that were later found to be harmful. Perhaps such matters should be resolved through equitable remedies, not legal ones.

Thomas French Norton

St. Michaels, Md.

Pipeline Passions

As a conservative Republican, I take exception to your statement that any retreat by Reagan from his opposition to the Soviet pipeline "would upset his conservative supporters." The President's attempts to punish the Soviet Union won't work [Sept. 13]. The people being punished are our allies and our domestic industries, which will lose sales to those foreign businesses that refuse to play our silly game. U.S. Trade Representative William Brock is right. It is time to establish with the NATO countries some long-range policy that won't change every four years with the whim of the latest President.

Alvin E. Nus

Stevensville, Mich.

First-Name Foul-Up

You reported that William Headlee is for Governor in Michigan [Sept. 20]. My name is Richard.

Richard Headlee

Republican Candidate for Governor

Southfield, Mich.

Vatican Finances

Your article "The Great Vatican Bank Mystery" [Sept. 13] was a cheap shot. Banco Ambrosiano, with small I.O.R. holdings, can hardly be called a Vatican anything. Roberto Calvi was probably guilty only of greed and poor judgement. Italy's leaders, who are anticlerical, should not be allowed to divert attention from their economic bungling to the thin Vatican connection. Banco Ambrosiano is just another example of the weakness of the world banking system.

James Miles

Tampa

Alcoholic Goat

I don't see the humor in getting any living creature drunk whether it be an adult, a child or an animal. Killing a goat with alcohol [Sept. 6] is poor entertainment. Why not shoot him instead?

Rita Mertes

Minneapolis

Family Ties

In your review "Blood Relatives" [Aug. 9] you say that our brother Alexander Pasternak was a member of Stalin's secret police, the Cheka. As an architect who designed one lock of the Moscow-Volga Canal. Alexander was employed by the Commissariat of Internal Affairs (NKVD) in 1936. The NKVD not only controlled all construction projects, like the canal and the metro, but had also taken over the functions of the Cheka. Accordingly, the NKVD uniform that Alexander was obliged to wear carried unpleasant associations, associations he detested because he was afraid of one department being confused with another, more sinister one, as has now been done in your review. Consequently, your subsequent speculations about Doctor Zhivago derive from this error and are worthless.

Lydia Pasternak Slater

Josephine Pasternak

Oxford, England

The Alexander Pasternak passage referred to was cited only to point out that Boris Pasternak 's literary imagination may well have been stimulated by the sight of his brother, in an NKVD uniform, working on a canal built by slave labor during the Great Terror.

Battle for Jobs

High unemployment rates are certainly the main reason why states and municipalities are competing so hard for new businesses [Sept. 6]. Another impetus is the changing nature of the job market. Many of those laid off from heavy-industry jobs will never return to the same positions. Today most available work requires technical skills. The race in the '80s and '90s will be to attract the high-technology companies. The winners will be areas like Indiana that are training skilled workers and fostering a climate for new ideas.

John M. Mutz

Lieutenant Governor, Indiana

Indianapolis

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