Pressure From Guard Union

Re “Union Crushed Bid to Let State Prosecute Guards” (July 19) and the Assembly Public Safety Committee’s choice to give full rein yet again to the judiciously generous prison guards’ union:

While I cannot believe that the people of California really want prison guards who literally get away with murder or a guards’ union that dictates policy to the agency its members work for and the Legislature from which they derive their authority, I also see very little interest exhibited by the public in these matters. Just another example of getting the government we deserve.

Thanks to The Times for at least nudging our conscience.

VALEREE LEE

Tehachapi

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I was stunned to read in your article words that were attributed to me by Atty. Gen. Bill Lockyer that were not merely misleading but words I never said.

For the record, the attorney general has personally apologized and issued a written statement retracting his statements about me and what I said (July 22). And while I appreciate Lockyer’s admission to this untruth, it does not change the fact that the damage is done.

JIM BATTIN

Assembly, R-La Quinta

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Having spent several years in California prisons, I find it completely plausible that one inmate could pummel another for 50 minutes and then strangle him directly under a guard who failed to notice anything (July 16). The prison system has an attitude: All inmates are scum, nobody of consequence really cares what happens to prisoners and prison guards should not be accountable to anyone.

Some inmates are scum to the core, but most are not. Some guards are scum to the core, but most are not. Prison atrocities will abate only through reforms that are systemic, such as making prison guards legally and effectively accountable to the public they serve (and to the inmates they assault, murder or carelessly allow to be attacked); allowing the news media back into prisons; and, above all, redirecting the prison establishment’s mentality toward an expectation of duty and professionalism on the part of guards and a recognition that prison is meant primarily to punish persons who happen to have been caught for specific bad acts, not to crush them as uniformly bad (or worthless) people.

MICHAEL BENHOFF

Long Beach