Dear Viewer:

I completely agree with your heartfelt response. Not only do the inmates come back with a negatively charged attitude from daily abuse, but the families doing time on the outside also begin to build with negative attitude towards the society who casts them out in much the same way.

A few years ago, early on in my husbands sentence my older son was writing a letter to his dad during his free time at school. The teacher discouraged this letter writing and later asked me to discourage it saying that, especially for school, it was unhealthy to encourage such a thing.

When my boys let neighbor kids know of their dads whereabouts they are either unable to play with them or are encouraged by other parents, who mean well. that they should not go about telling people their dad is in prison. They are encouraged to lie and be ashamed.

Not only is this unhealthy to children, but think of the inmate when he comes home to his children, probably grown by then, who have suffered due to the incarceration - and the inmate is already angry and has learned that he is believed to be useless to society.

I believe that close communication in whatever form is allowed is important during the prison sentence so the that inmate has a voice from somewhere telling him that at least one person in the world sees that s/he is worth something and that their life is of some value.

I believe that alternative sentencing should be used whenever possible especially for first time and low level offenders. I agree completely that TREATMENT is what is needed for the underlying reasons that lead up to the crime and prison is no place for that type of treatment.

Better use of drug/alcohol rehab, abuse survivor rehab, sexual offenders programs, mental health treatment, boot camps style sentences with skills training, bracelet sentences, and work camps might treat some better than just locking them up. Some simply need to know the laws, there are some offenders who simply did not know that what they did was against the law.

When I participated in the film A Sentence of Their Own I had hoped that those in the justice system would think twice before just locking away an offender. I was never hoping that there would be an easy way out for an offender, but perhaps better ways of rehabilitating a human being who quite obviously had something go wrong in their mind or in their life.

My husband was suppose to receive treatment for his crime as part of his plea bargain and should have been out after 3 years of treatment. He has been in for 5 years now, he will be in for two more years and he has NEVER received treatment for his crime in New Hampshire State Prison.

He will come to the world abused and emotionally unstable. Luckily his family did keep contact, his children did write to their dad, and he does believe he has worth at least in the small society of his family and his friends on the outside who have not forgotten he is a human being.

When he comes home he will truly be rehabilitated because he wishes to enter our state Alcohol rehabilitation program and other programs related to his specific offense - since the prison failed to rehabilitate him. If he didn’t have a family and friends to come home to however, he would be an angry, emotionally unstable ex-con alone in the world, believing he has been rehabilitated...until the next time.

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