LETTERS: COMPETITION FOR PRISONS

To the editor:

A number of communities are keenly at work competing in the latest version of prison lottery hoping to be selected as the lucky recipient of a new industry. From reading about the way these communities are plotting their strategies, you would think they were going after an honest-to-goodness real industry. The proponents cite statistics regarding jobs it will create, the multimillion-dollar annual payroll, the number of times each payroll dollar will be reproduced in the local economy and the number of vendors who will be needed to service the facility and the prisoners' families moving into the area. Whether citizens want this type of facility in their backyard is up to them to decide, but there is another aspect of this issue which is troubling and questions why the need for such a facility should ever exist.

The controversy actually centers on the moral and spiritual decline of our nation. America has elected national leaders who are lacking in character and integrity and who appoint federal judges who are encumbered with a leftist, liberal ideology and who then render judgments based on their amoral values learned at their local chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union. Decisions are handed down that require the removal of any moral or religious instruction in our public schools and on any public property. God and prayer were both booted out of our schools in 1963, and since then drugs, violence and sexual promiscuity have been on the increase, while achievement test scores have been declining. Deadly weapons are routinely seized in schools, and metal detectors and security guards are found on many campuses. Come high school students make hundreds of dollars weekly as drug dealers. Even the mention of God or the display of the Ten Commandments send many teachers and administrators running to their attorneys for advice. Prayers at football games and graduation exercises have been largely eliminated.

With many of our young people growing up in this moral and spiritual vacuum, is it any wonder that many of them turn to lives of crime and violence? Biology classes often teach that humans were descended from animals, but society acts surprised when students behave like it. Any peace officer can tell you of the exponential increases in family violence because of gambling, alcoholism and drugs that are so prevalent everywhere. America is imploding spiritually. Some of this could have been avoided with proper training at home, school and church. This would help eliminate the urgent need for more prisons and this fierce competition to see who gets the latest prison. Benjamin Franklin said, "An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure," but that seems to be a lesson we are having a hard time learning. Some community in Southeast Missouri may win the prison lottery, but it ain't nothin' to be proud of.

GERALD W. BEAM

Dexter