Letters to the editor Feb. 7, 2013

Tuition costs
How students can cut tuition
If students want to cut tuition (or rather costs) there are some easy steps they can take:
1) Cancel the construction of the Student Experience Center
2) Cancel the student subsidy to the athletic department.

Total savings about $90 per student per term.

Paul Cull
Computer science
Feb. 4 Barometer
Forum writers did a great job
As a business man for the past 40 years in Corvallis, I would like to commend Alex Abelson and Drew Pells for two very well written and thought out articles in your Monday Barometer, (Plastic bag ban and Less intrusive government). I would encourage you to send these to the Corvallis Gazette Times and ask them to publish. I think it would be a nice to see how some of the students at OSU feel about these issues, that are often hot community topics.

While I admit I don’t often read the Barometer, these articles made the rounds in our local Corvallis office, and in my opinion were very impressive to all who read them!
Tim Gallagher
First Vice President
Financial Advisor
RBC Wealth Management
#Wearethesquare
“Fund schools not prisons”
The United States leads the world in three categories: number of people that think angels are real, defense spending and number of citizens incarcerated per capita.

In this week’s #Wearthesquare rally I couldn’t help but notice one individual with a particularly ignorant sign. It read “Fund Schools Not Prisons”. Now, I would never be one to say that what America needs is more prisons. And I imagine most prisoners would agree with that. And I would also never be one to say that removing funding from schools to put into prisons would be a good idea. And I believe most prisoners would also agree.

But the ignorance that sign displays is nothing short of infuriating. Prisons are just as much in need, if not more, of funding. And when I say funding, I don’t mean more beds or more prisons. I mean college programs, rehabilitation, work skills. So many prisoners in Oregon, and the United States languish in prison unable to create meaningful change in their lives. We, as taxpayers and voters, put them there and we haven’t given them the tools to reenter society. America is its own biggest accomplice when it comes to reoffending.

By not funding prison reentry programs and drawing signs that belittle and demean what little humanity prisoners have left we propagate a culture that locks people up and throws away the key. This is no way to treat human beings. There are some people that truly need to be separated from society. Even the best, most cooperative prisoners, that I have had the honor and privilege of meeting, agrees with that. But for the vast majority it does them no good to sit in the darkness with diminishing social and work skills unable to compete for any type of meaningful work upon reentry in society.

Tim Daniel
Senior, psychology and sociology
Prisoner Rights Advocacy Group President
Director of SafeRide