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Letters
Bogart For OTEC Board, She’s Concerned With Cost Of Energy
To The Record-Courier
We are writing in support of Geri Bogart for the Oregon Trail Electric Cooperative Board of Directors. Geri worked for seven years at the Baker Senior Center on various projects such as the commodity food distribution, energy assistance and transportation.
Then she was employed for 13 years by Oregon State in the Human Resources Department dealing with various needs of the low income people of Oregon. She now is very concerned with the cost of energy and the production of alternative and renewable forms of electricity.
It is important for you, the voting member, to know that your vote represents the entire OTEC, not just this district. Please mark your OTEC ballot for her and she will work hard for you.
Jewel and Bill Pilcher
Baker City
PRCF’s Alcohol/Drug Program Is One Of Most Successful In U.S.
To The Record -Courier:
Noting that the U. S. has the highest incarceration rate in the world, one of Baker City Herald's readers recommends that InnerChange Freedom Initiative be recruited to put on its program at our local Powder River Correctional Facility (PRCF). She believes the program could significantly reduce inmate recidivism.
InnerChange is an inmate rehabilitation program based on evangelical Christian religion started by Watergate felon and former inmate Charles Colson. InnerChange officials cite a study by the University of Pennsylvania showing that the program reduces recidivism to between 8% and 11%, significantly lower than typical recidivism rates of 30% or higher.
However, a study by University of California public policy professor Mark Kleiman found that the Pennsylvania study ignored 58% of the program's participants by excluding those who dropped out of the program. Kleiman's re-analysis of the data found that InnerChange participants actually returned to prison at a slightly higher
rate than non-participants.
In 2006 InnerChange and the Iowa Department of Corrections lost a case that at trial and at the U. S. District Court appellate level was found to be in violation of the First Amendment based on the state's illegal funding of a religious program without offering inmates a comparable non-religious program. InnerChange did not even try to argue in court that its program significantly reduced recidivism rates.
The appellate opinion made this observation: “As the Supreme Court has repeatedly held, one of the few absolutes in Establishment Clause [First Amendment] jurisprudence is the ‘prohibition against government-financed or government-sponsored indoctrination into the beliefs of a particular religious faith.’DeStefano, 247 F. 3d at 416."
Finally, the reader is apparently unaware that PRCF's alcohol and drug rehabilitation program is recognized as being one of the most successful inmate rehabilitation programs in the United States.
Gary Dielman
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