Lenient judges blunt efforts to fight crime

Despite the valiant efforts of Mayor Martin O'Malley and Police Commissioner Edward T. Norris to bring down the rate of violent crime in Baltimore, the atrocities continue to proliferate.

And although the police commissioner reports improvement in a number of categories ("Police commissioner says 'things are getting better,'" Oct. 31), he is actually citing outdated FBI figures relating to the 1999-2001 period. Recent statistics paint a different picture, particularly of the number of homicides and other crimes this year.

What can be done to improve conditions? I believe the criminal justice system in Baltimore cries out for reforms.

In too many instances, cases are dropped or lost through lack of evidence or sloppy handling by the state's attorney's office.

And some judges, hearing cases involving hoodlums with long arrest records, are inclined either to dismiss the cases, grant probation or order home detention, which has become a joke.

No matter how many arrests are made, conditions are unlikely to change as long as some judges hand down lenient sentences, grant probation or encourage early parole.

Albert E. Denny

Pikesville

Let the lawyers charge suspects

Angela and Carnell Dawson and their five children stood up to the terrorists in our city and were firebombed to death. They are truly fallen heroes. They are also a part of a set of crime statistics that probably won't change under the existing system.

Many cities -- including New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Detroit and Philadelphia -- have reduced murders through good policing and prosecuting. The police gather evidence, make arrests and let the local prosecutor's office charge and prosecute the cases.

Baltimore does not follow these procedures. The police arrest and charge the criminals ("Baltimore police officers' power to file murder charges is rare," Oct. 22). The prosecutors are left to try the cases, often without sufficient evidence.

Baltimore should allow the prosecutors to take charge of the cases. The lawyers know what it takes to convict these terrorists.

And credit should be given for convictions, not merely arrests.

Mayor Martin O'Malley and Police Commissioner Edward T. Norris have done a good job reducing crime. I hope they can build on their success and work with the prosecutors to find the most effective way to get murderers off the streets.

J. Yeoumans

Cockeysville

Get-tough approach won't stop drug trade

We have had a family murdered, their house set on fire for clashing with drug dealers ("Acknowledging 'our debt to this family,'" Oct. 25). And we have young men murdered every year -- some good men and some not-so-good ones. But the common thread is drugs.

The city seems paralyzed. The reflexive response is always to get tougher, to make more arrests, make sentences longer. To further destroy the fabric of the family by putting a large percentage of the men in jail, separating mothers, fathers and children.

At what point do we decide the approach we have been using is not working? At what point do we force our politicians to discuss alternatives?

When do we say that maybe we need to take the profit out of drugs -- and discuss decriminalizing drug use and channeling the money we spend prosecuting it into treatment rather than incarceration?

We need to treat drug abuse as a medical problem, just as we treat alcohol abuse. We need to focus our limited resources on helping those citizens who become addicted to drugs.

We need to quit trying to enforce conformity to some ideal, substance-free society and deal responsibly with those who can't live that way.

As long as someone wants drugs, someone will sell them.

And as long as the profit ratio is so high and the product is outside our regulatory framework, someone will protect these profits with violence.

Bob Sartwell

Pasadena

Take back the city from dealers, addicts

I am amazed at the number of misguided people who believe that legalizing drugs will solve all of society's problems.

To compare the legal use of alcohol to the use of drugs such as heroin, cocaine and crack is ludicrous. Illegal drugs, with the arguable exception of marijuana, are far more addictive and destructive than alcohol. And illegal drug use in the United States costs us billions each year in lost productivity.

Mayor Martin O'Malley has wisely advanced a program of drug treatment and rehabilitation in addressing drug addiction. And I agree that this is the best policy.

However, such programs must be followed up with effective enforcement of drug laws and parole conditions. And there must be harsh consequences for those who continue to fall into the trap of drugs despite repeated efforts at treatment.

Programs such as the "Believe" campaign are also essential to solving this drug crisis.

No one in Baltimore wants to acknowledge that the blame for the city's drug problem lies with city residents. But the drug problem did not happen overnight. And where were the concerned citizens when drug dealers were moving into their neighborhoods?

The sacrifice made by the Dawson family is unthinkable.

But the courage they showed in standing up to drug pushers and working to take back the city is the sort of effort that has to happen if we're to save Baltimore from years of indifference.

Stephen Chittenden

Baltimore

Real-life children face limited choices

Most of the responses The Sun printed to the October Question of the Month about violence in the city came from folks with lots of opinions, but whose information seems to come from media reports (letters, Oct. 26).

As someone who teaches in a Baltimore high school I am in daily contact with the city's young men. And the reality is much more complex then the simplistic "lock 'em up and throw away the key" approach many writers proposed.

We are not living the black-and-white world of TV drama and Hollywood. We are living in a white-privilege, black-poverty world of real life.

These are real, flesh-and-blood children. They are trying to find a way to survive. Their choices are limited in reality, and in their minds the choices are more limited.

Talking to these kids and working with them is a very enlightening experience.

M. Angela Callahan

Baltimore

Culture of violence is the real enemy

Whenever there is a sensational gun crime, the Democrats call for more gun laws and the Republicans call for stricter enforcement of existing laws and longer prison sentences for gun-using criminals. But how would better enforcement of existing gun laws or longer prison sentences have prevented the Beltway sniper tragedy?

The truth is that we live in a country that validates and even glorifies violence, from the president ("I want bin Laden dead or alive") down to the mayor of Baltimore, who recently threatened to beat up his critics.

Go to a computer game store and watch about one minute of "Grand Theft Auto" to get an idea of the lessons our children are absorbing. Turn on a television during prime time and you will usually only have to wait seconds before some act of violence is portrayed on the screen.

Gun violence is as American as war, low minimum wages and childhood poverty.

Until the underlying causes of violence are addressed, the Democratic and Republican solutions will continue to ring hollow after each and every sensational gun crime.

Dave Goldsmith

Woodstock

The writer is the coordinator of the Baltimore County Green Party.

Ehrlich's gun stance was no 'misstep'

The day after Rep. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. won the Maryland gubernatorial election, The Sun had a front-page article that stated up-front that Mr. Ehrlich "beat Democrat Kathleen Kennedy Townsend by a decisive margin." And he did ("Ehrlich wins," Nov. 6).

But toward the end of the article, it stated, "Ehrlich made significant missteps, in particular calling for the review of some of the state's tough gun laws when gun control was barely a campaign issue."

Before the election perhaps The Sun thought that was a misstep. Now it should know better. If this suggestion was a significant misstep, Mr. Ehrlich would have lost the election.

Mr. Ehrlich called for the review of some of the state's gun laws and Mr. Ehrlich won an election he wasn't supposed to win.

He beat Ms. Townsend decisively in a state that has about twice as many Democrats as Republicans.

I think most Marylanders who care enough to vote believe, as the Founding Fathers did, that the right of the people to keep and bear arms should not be infringed.

And they could see that right being seriously threatened by Democrats in Annapolis who seem to think disarming law-abiding citizens will somehow make us safer.

Bill Scanlon, Ellicott City

Train service needs full federal funding

How can it be that Congress would consider eliminating the safest, most energy-efficient form of transportation in this country -- the passenger train?

The need for alternative methods of moving people was vividly demonstrated last year after Sept. 11, when Amtrak stations were jammed with people.

And with the administration warning that other acts of terrorism are likely, it would be short-sighted in the extreme not to fund Amtrak fully.

As a long-distance business traveler who visits schools and libraries, I can go by train to communities I cannot reach by plane.

And on the train I meet elderly citizens seeing the country for the first time; foreign travelers enthralled by the beauty and variety of our country; handicapped people who cannot drive; Amish persons who cannot, for religious reasons, fly; families who want space for restless children on long journeys; and many business people like myself who can get to rural areas or the heart of a large city without uncertainty about fog or storms canceling flights.

Some people have health problems that make it difficult to fly, and others use the time and space on the train to work.

Amtrak should not have to be self-supporting.

It should not be given just enough funding to barely squeak by, but the full amount needed not only to maintain the cars and keep present routes operating but to expand the system and add more high-speed rail between major cities.

And it should be a system for the entire country, not just the Northeast corridor.

If we are short-sighted and allow the system to be dismantled, it would be very difficult and costly to start over.

Phyllis Naylor

Bethesda

U.S. had to confront Soviet missile threat

If Steve Chapman is going to use the Cuban missile crisis as an argument against a U.S. attack on Iraq, he had better get a handle on his own logic ("The real lessons of the Cuban missile crisis," Opinion

Commentary, Oct 22 .

Mr. Chapman states that the Soviet missiles in Cuba in 1962 were "almost entirely irrelevant" because the Soviets had "nuclear-tipped intercontinental ballistic missiles capable of hitting U.S. cities" already in place in Soviet silos.

And, besides, any Soviet first strike would have produced a nuclear response from the United States that would have wiped out "their entire country," negating any advantage gained by offensive missiles in Cuba.

Therefore, Mr. Chapman concludes that the Soviet missiles were moved to Cuba to serve as a deterrent against further attempts by the United States to topple the government of Fidel Castro.

But, using Mr. Chapman's logic, the Soviet Union needed only state that any U.S. invasion of Cuba would result in the Soviets launching their nuclear arsenal against the United States. The result would have been the same whether the missiles were fired from Cuba or the Soviet Union.

But the fact is that the Soviets moved their missiles to Cuba to bully the United States.

Had we allowed those missiles to stay 90 miles off our coast, the Soviets certainly would have viewed this as a sign of weakness, and there is no telling how history would have been changed by that perception.

John Tully

Glen Burnie

Waste only sharpens the world's divisions

The Oct. 20 Home & Family section was bloated with stories about conspicuous consumption, starting with the cover piece (ad?) about elective surgery for rampant obesity ("A New Life," Oct. 20).

Then there was the item (ad?) about "a new line of garage doors designed with the height of SUVs, boats and RVs in mind." And next to that was a write-up and photo on a $399 grill to cook steaks with infra-red heat from the back of a pickup truck ("One-stop shopping for home improvement," Oct. 20).

What we have here are bigger and bigger gas-guzzling cars and boats to fit into our bigger and bigger land-grabbing and energy-guzzling homes; a new way to cook fat-laden steaks produced in ways that waste energy, land and water on our gas-guzzling trucks and SUVs; and an alarming epidemic of obesity being "cured" by an elective and expensive surgery.

Many of us assume there will always be a technological, military or medical solution to the health or political problems caused by wasteful overconsumption. But such solutions are palliative in nature and do not deal with root causes.

And in a world divided between the extremes of those who consume (and waste) vastly more than they will ever need and those with virtually nothing to consume or waste, there will never be peace.

No vehicle, garage, medical treatment or sum of money will save us from our greed and waste.

Paul M. Foer, Annapolis

Comic strip parents put infant at risk

The comic strip "For Better or Worse" features two sleep-deprived young parents doing their best to cope with the challenges of a new baby.

Unfortunately, in two recent strips, the couple has placed their baby to sleep on her stomach, a sleeping position known to increase a child's risk for sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS), which is the sudden, unexplained death of an infant under 1 year old.

The strip also shows the infant sleeping among stuffed toys, and on fluffy bedding material. But soft bedding and other soft material increase the risk of SIDS by trapping exhaled air around the infant's mouth and nose.

The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that, unless directed otherwise by a physician, infants should be placed to sleep on their backs, on firm bedding, free of pillows, quilts, stuffed toys and other soft items.

Duane Alexander

Bethesda

The writer is director of the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development.

A skewed view of proud Antigua

All of Antigua is bitterly disappointed with the unfair reporting in The Sun's article "Sniper case latest in Antigua scandals" (Nov. 4).

John Allen Muhammad abused our generosity and our willingness to help strangers. He enrolled his children in our public school although he had never been a taxpayer. He induced a law-abiding headmistress to assert that she knew him for a much longer period than was actually the case, in order to appear more credible to the passport-issuing authorities.

We were victims of Mr. Muhammad's criminal bent, and we have now become victims of a Sun reporter's intent on seeing ugly natives.

Poverty, illiteracy and oppression characterized our history until colonialism came to an end. Today, our rating under the United Nations Human Development Index puts Antigua and Barbuda in the same league as several European states, despite our long history of abuse at the hands of others. But that is good news and apparently of no interest to a reporter bent on seeing the ugly.

In a democratic state, the opposition party paints pictures of the ruling party that are unattractive. To conclude, as The Sun seems to have, that such a picture accurately represents reality is to deny what all adult Antiguans know.

We live in a place where the law is respected, where truth always surfaces, and where trusting Antiguans depend on reporters from abroad to sift through extreme claims, not merely to repeat them.

Lionel A. Hurst

Washington

The writer is Antigua and Barbuda's ambassador to the United States.