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About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (Jan. 18, 1996)
VIEWPOINTS EDITORIALS OPINIONS LETTERS TO THE EDITOR Military-like boot camp could beat prison blues ■ OUR OPINION: Camps lor young criminals wiii work if other programs are implemented Bad lw»vv bad boy*, whan ha gonna do? Whale ha gonna do whan they coma for you? .Stand at attention and shout “yes sir?" for starters. Baginning next year, some of Oregon's bad boys will get a free trip to a location near Tillamook where they’ll get a short haircut, pul on black leather boots, and experience many of the joys of military life as pari Of a new alternative to con ventional incarceration. By early 1W7. a boot camp facility for some 52 nonviolent juvenile crimi nals will o|»en just south of Tillamook as part of a slate plan to rehabilitate young offenders. While the facility Isa good idea, all the military' discipline in the world can't replace tho positive effects of a stable and healthy fami ly environment, a saw ialing with law abiding friends, and having access to an edu cation and t enter choices These concepts, and oth ers. wilt have to be added to tho Oregon Youth Aulhori ty’s operating plans if they hope to lie successful in thoir wwk with tho 15 to Id year-old*. The project, which begin* with the construction of a $2 million complex, will put young inmates through a rigorous six month sched ule of physical condition ing. academic training, drug and alcohol counseling, community works protects, and instruction in decision making skills Organizers say a strong follow-up sup jKirt program will also need to be included No kidding Imagine how hard it would b© for a young ponton to make intelligent I tie-deci sions If they were put through « reaffirming pro gram like the boot uunp. only to be dropped off Into the tame dysfunctional home and bad neighborhood they managed to escape from just six months before To head off repeal behav ior. officials should think about providing inmates with positive rule models and bringing peer coun selors into the institution Every good example would help Other ideas include offer ing a variety of classes from computers to outdoor sport* and teaching such basics as filling out resumes and fob hunting skills. The goal. of course, is lo return the former criminal beck to society with skills marketed more toward legal endeavors than illegal ones As usual, there is some resistance to the plan Critics say hoot camp pro Srams. even adult one*. ave not yet proven to be more effective than their conventional counterparts. One of the reasons for this is that the hoot camp concept is a relatively new one and not enough time has gone by to allow for any long-range studies Of the 36 such facil ities in operation across the U S., none are more than sis years old Still, we think military style boot t amps are a good idea. Not only does society ben efit from having young crim inals removed temporarily from the streets, hut offend era are also put into an envi ronment where they have no choice but to learn how to respect themselves and others. itmmtmt («•>•* « mmumumi immt, *w*«|*» kMmm '—»*». m tlvM«)>^IWMMilrl«aiONpiMllM<WNMM|Cl K « *a M»mt 0 I I^MR * *M£MB BB Mfe kBWMMIB BBMk MB t BBIMB# BflNBim BbBMMMBM (B Ml JUMBBiB klM lft«*1a*Mi«WI«ltlw«iMM Hmnmi< »»«■»» m»% tumMiiiinionimmi ibmmmm — I mm'* Sm* tmvm mi imm 1mm mmn mm tmtmtmm w M*»b> Ok< »*» tiwf w *w* *J IMWI t«ny ««* uj ii«*OM mn HNmmM Cbm Dm> «*• .wjr *»«»» .«>(M *m» *M amt mm mm M> imm *Wmm awuMMMpMn mm mmImmu (•momi mmbmemum imm> . <W<«M M*tr MtCiMt CM M ! !**< M*»ll M»«ll M»>ru M»4M1 r Gooo' v'ouVt Eaten ALL 'r*OoR CAAJDV BARS' but vo^ haven't t^chcd V*>oR POTATO CH/Pj, 0 ** VOU EAT VOuQ ppjEO PWTF£0 cHt€S£ SNALKS *>*> OAlNK VtH/A SoOA, I **AVE A S#C,AL OtSSERT ** V*>U! DON'T GO AVMY, r*LL B€ mcxr Epidemic cKiidKocd obesity baffles researchers J r►.». me t: i»*-# I «• M*4e •** w> |*l NO cCKNXrfS ABtf TO &o AwAV —-J»i, , L LITTERS* Rights for unborn? The Rev Or Manin Luther King. Jr Mid that infauna any* whw» »at a threat to |u«tk« everywhere He Mid thia about eegregatton and d incrimination *lat ui never tunvmh to the temptation of believing that leg illation and judicial decree* play only a minor rol« in aolv* mg thu problem Morality can not be legislated, but behavior tan be regulated Judicial decree* may not change the heart, hut limy can restrain the heart let* " (from Strength n( late) Wliat might Dr King have Mid about our current iwai menl ol the Immature membw of our *pm n»*r Hr King devoted hi* life to oppo»tng I hr* chon* lo diMJim mat* on iho beait of nit* Bui one work after in* birthday we observe she anniversary of the Roe * Wade dot i*ion. which freed u* lo choo*» lo dlwnmi nat* faulty on the baai* of the 'wanted noM." physical maturi ty, appearance. m%. health. ife|H>iuien< e. sentience.. perent • age or any other criterion, including race, if 11 it done before birth Are these criteria any less arbitrary or aubfectlve than race? By what logic shall we choose criteria for excluding olher* from ihe prated ion of ihe human community? Wbit doe* the act*ptance of such cri teria for destruction My about the content of our character? Alfred Lemmo Oewtxxn. Michigan Offensive irony I'd like to respond to |ohn Fujita, who on Nov 19. had an ‘infuriating incident" at the Knight Library (OOif. Jan 11). Hi* ‘ear* were aiMulted by an unruly individual's head phone clamor." I can surely sympathise with John's desire for silence and a quiet work place I often find myself in a similar predicament While his request seems reasonable enough, his correlation between an inaction! individual, a Jerry Garcia T-shirt and what lorry laugh! you?” I* noil He goes on lo uy iha! the tack of reaped this man dia played is a direct manifestation of ferry's linage I don ! think to. the rationale behind (hit thinking is simply ludicrous. Does he mean to say that all }«rry (an i« followers fit a pre disposed attitude of rudeness and lack of consideration for others' Maybe this specific per son realty "didn't give a f-~ about IFujital ‘ Nevertheless, I believe his disrespect of you hardly stems from hts apprecia tion of Jem Garcia or the Grate ful Dead The irony here ties in John * own impudence to all Garcia followers, while he claims to be the victim ol a discourteous offense himself l thought we were in college. John Claudia A VHIena Sociology Pro-Wyden I applaud Ron Wyden't dec i fiian to try to put a stop to the negative nature of the cam paign It is m> easy to take some small detail and grossly distort and magnify it so as to give a wrong impression of how a can didate is likely to cast many voles over six years in a given area of public policy. I am going io vote for Ron Wyden because he has been a consistent progressive Democ rat over the years and. as such, he has given the interests of the average person and the disad vantaged top priority. In our increasingly winner lake-all society, we need some one in the Senate to look after the needs of the "little guy ~ If Cordon Smith is elec ted, his overall record for six years will be to make the overpaid rich even richer at the expense of the present and future situa tion of the average person and the disadvantaged I deduce this from his own overall back Sround and the philosophy of ts party So 1 hope that voters will look at the big picture and not vote for who touched a nerve with hi* late*t clever, nasty "hit piece," Dan Weiner Eugene Can’t judge a book Miss Williamson, allow me to answer your accusation of big otry of the members of the Che got1 Commentator {ODE. |an. 81 with a short story-; There once was a young boy of blue eyes and snow-white blond hair, and his parents moved to a remote town in a foreign country where he was the only child without dark skin and dark eyes There he teamed the lan guage of that foreign nation bet ter than his own for the years they remained oversea* Upon the family's return to the Unit ed States, they sent the young hoy school rut the child it was a Strang# experience Despite the lan guage difficulties he suffered because of his refusal to use hnglish. he also was horrified at the pale skmned children he saw. his own skin becoming deeply tanned while in the tropics Over time the child grew older, and the differences in skin color no longer skewed the vision of the young boy. and he did learn to accept English And as a result, the boy made, and continues to make, an effort not to let difference* tn culture and race skew his perception of other human beings Miss Williamson, that boy ia myself I am thoroughly distraught that you tan lump every mem ber of a production into the same group so quickly The Oregon Commentator is a Jour nal of opinions, and it doesn t mean an individual writer will agree with the writings of another staff writer. |ust as in any other publication contain ing editorial pieces. Gordon Gilbert Sta« WrtUV Oregon Commentator
