Why worry about inmates having to pay for accounts?
Published August 10, 2004
Re: An unfair charge, editorial, Aug. 6.
The editorial writer needs to wake up and smell the proverbial coffee. The state wants to charge prisoners a service fee to maintain their accounts. My comment is: Welcome to the real world. Most if not all bank account holders are faced with similar fees. Why should prisoners be the exception?
Prison is a punishment not a country club. The inmates are there because they were deemed to be unfit for society, and now the state wants to charge a few bucks to maintain their accounts? So what! Had these individuals chosen to live within the law to begin with they wouldn't be there now, would they?
Your comment that prisoner accounts shouldn't be plundered to make state officials look tough is another fallacy. I have a better idea: Let's stop worrying about the prisoner and focus more on the victims of their crimes and make them pay restitution, or better yet offset the growing burden of more inmates in the prison system by making them pay state restitution to effectively pay for room and board!
-- John Luttrell, Largo
A mean-spirited measure
Re: Account fees for prisoners draw protest.
This article details a bill that imposes a "banking fee" of up to $6 per month on the accounts of Florida state prison inmates.
The self-righteous, like the lawmaker who introduced the measure, will say, "Well that's fine with me because my tax dollars pay to house those crooks. They should have to pay."
But regardless of how you feel toward the inmates, consider this: Since almost all of inmates' money is sent to them from outside by friends and loved ones, this banking fee - this fine - has effectively been imposed upon the sons and daughters, mothers and fathers, wives and husbands, friends and relatives of prisoners. People like the little boy who saves part of his allowance to send it to Daddy so he can get a snack in the canteen. Or the elderly lady who does with a little less so she can send a few dollars of her Social Security to her imprisoned daughter. Why? Because they love their kin. With this new fee, the state has effectively snatched some of their meager donation out of their hands before it could serve the loving purpose for which it was intended.
If the costs of confining people are so high that we need to resort to such mean-spirited measures as this, then we need to stop putting so many people in jail for such long sentences.
I encourage you to contact your state legislators and ask them to reconsider this very bad law.
-- Andy Durey, Gulfport
Don't feel sorry for inmates
Re: An unfair charge, editorial.
You actually think it's unfair to charge people in prison for what sounds like anything. Well let's see: These are the same people who commited a crime and now are being punished. They go to sleep in a well-guarded area, and they awake to breakfast before they might have to go to work. That tells me they get more than a lot of kids out there do before they go to school.
Yes, they work, but they get fed and a bed. What's the old saying? Three squares and a roof. A lot of people would love to know they had that on a daily basis. But there are veterans who fought for this country who are homeless, and yet these criminals have what they could only hope for.
As for snacks or hygiene products, those are luxuries. Talk to a mother trying to support her children on minimum wage and state assistance and see how many snacks her kids get and how many meals she misses so her kids can eat.
Get real. My taxes are for my kids, not somebody in jail. If you can't afford the time, then don't do the crime.
-- Jamie Van Beek, Holiday
Legitimizing cruelty
Re: An unfair charge.
I wish that your poignant and timely editorial had established the connection between the legislative decision to charge the state prisoners for their accounts and the widespread prisoner abuse in Iraq. There is no better demonstration that Abu Ghraib started at home.
The likes of Rep. Fred Brummer owe their electoral success to a shameless exploitation of the basest human instincts. They have legitimized cruelty and sadism by calling this despicable practice justice, compassion and fiscal responsibility! How can these men and women proclaim themselves champions of life, while they demonstrate such callousness toward other human beings?
-- Lodovico Balducci, Tampa
Will teachers have to pay to get a raise?
Re: Property tax and Pinellas County schools.
I am a sixth-year teacher for Pinellas County Schools. I love my job. What an awesome feeling it is to teach a child how to read and write, add and subtract, conduct a science experiment. I certainly don't do this job for the money. If that was the case, I would have moved on to another profession by now.
So why, as a teacher for Pinellas County, am I faced with having to pay for my own salary raise by voting to raise my property taxes? I barely make enough now to survive on. (Thank God my household has two full-time incomes! Think about all of the single-parent teachers out there.) Granted, it may only be $5 a month "extra" when the tax bill comes at the end of the year, but why in the world is it my responsibility to pay for my own salary? Isn't that the state's job? The county's? Teachers have been given the shaft long enough.
Thank you to all of the wonderful kids, parents, and colleagues who have kept me teaching the past five years, because without you, I would be one of those "first five year-ers" who would have left the profession by now.
-- Kim Dennison, Largo
Frustrated with the job
This is the first August in three years that hasn't found me in the classroom. I handed in my resignation at the close of school in May. So did my husband, who happened to teach at the same school. Why? There are a number of reasons, many of them touched on in recent letters to the editor regarding the referendum on increasing property taxes.
First of all, we got tired of purchasing supplies for the students whose parents couldn't (or wouldn't). We felt frustrated by the constant "freebies" and handouts that companies give to teachers, because they know that we get paid so little.
The final straw was when we realized that we would literally have to sacrifice in order to teach in the fall, as we were essentially taking a pay cut, what with the paltry pay increase and the dramatic jump in insurance costs.
So, I was more than a little dismayed to see Jade Moore's Aug. 5 letter touting the benefits of a property tax referendum. Has it occurred to anyone that this amounts to teachers (most of whom are homeowners in Pinellas County) financing their own raises? How nice. I guess Mr. Moore and the impotent teacher's union, coupled with the School Board members (who are woefully inept at budgeting) are hoping that, like all the other times they are taken advantage of, the teachers will simply accept their fate. For the sake of the teaching profession and the dignity and respect it is due, I hope that they don't.
-- Marie I. Singleton, St. Petersburg
Teacher pay looks good
On the front page of the Aug. 6 Business section is an article titled What we earn. There are eight photographs, each with a job and hourly wage.
There are several very important jobs mentioned: firefighter, police officer, registered nurse. But of all the jobs pictured, which one pays the most? Teacher, at an average salary of $25.52 per hour.
I suggest that your readers compare that with their own hourly wage, and then remember that when they vote this November on the tax increase the School Board is proposing. Throwing even more dollars at the problem is not the answer.
-- Terry L. Martin, Pinellas Park
Don't distort teacher pay
I am a teacher in Pinellas County and I found your recent article on What we earn misleading.
Your average of more than $25 per hour for a teacher does not reflect the actual salary that most of us bring home.
I am a 5-year teacher and make approximately $31,000 per year. If I worked during the summer teaching at summer camps, I could make an additional $5,000. I am a single mother with two school-age children and chose not to pay high child-care costs and put them into a summer camp. I make $17.43 per hour, not $25 per hour.
You are misrepresenting the financial situation of the teachers I know. Many teachers cannot afford to not work during the summer, and at least one out of every three teachers has a part-time job during the school year. Our pay scale does not adjust to inflation or the high and rising cost of health insurance. Teachers who hold a master's degree receive only $2,000 more than those with a bachelor's degree with the cost of acquiring the higher degree well above $6,000 and two to three years of study.
It seems unfair to me that you posted these income figures without a clear and concise explanation. The "article" was a few lines under very large pictures and income averages in bold type. I bet most people did not even read the few paragraphs below, but formed their own opinions without further investigation. At a time when we teachers need the newspaper and other media to help inform the public on the education crisis here in our county, you slap one-liners on the front page to obscure the truth.
On the November ballot, there will be a property tax referendum that if passed will be directed to increase Pinellas County teachers' salaries. We need to become a society that honors, values and respects the individuals who educate our children, the future community leaders. Without adequate pay, good teachers will find better paying jobs in the private sector.
Andrea Beane, B.F.A., M.Ed., St. Petersburg
Foot surgery helps many
Re: Foot surgery missteps, Aug. 3.
This article, which attempted to explain the risks involved with cosmetic foot surgery, unfortunately presented a very biased depiction. In documenting the poor result of one patient, the article failed to mention the millions of patients who have benefitted from elective and reconstructive foot surgery.
Correcting bunions and hammertoes is an accepted treatment to eliminate these deformities, most of which are painful or limit function, activity or shoe choices. Although not cosmetic, most foot surgery is elective and attempts to restore a more properly aligned, functional and cosmetically appealing foot. All surgery has certain inherent risks, which should be explained to the patient prior to the procedures and weighed against the long-term benefits.
I hope most readers will be able to distinguish between the bad experience of one patient who chose to have cosmetic surgery from the many who have benefitted from appropriately performed elective foot surgery.
-- Michael S. Werner, DPM, Gulfport
Images and impressionable minds
Re: Page 31 of Weekend, Aug. 5.
The unfortunate placement of the As seen through young eyes feature just above the advertisement for Shepard's Quest For Breasts makes me wonder what the young minds behind those young eyes are thinking when they scan the page to read about their photographic exploits.
-- Jim Lyman, Lutz
[Last modified August 10, 2004, 12:00:20]
