Banning boots for prisoners is not reasonable

After an inmate brutally assaulted a correctional officer at SCI Somerset last week, some have asked for a systemwide ban on work boots in our prisons. The Post-Gazette’s editorial board immediately jumped on the bandwagon, running an editorial titled “Ban the Boots” (March 3), calling the request “eminently reasonable” and suggesting that a ban on boots is a no-brainer.

There are approximately 45,000 men housed in our correctional facilities in Pennsylvania. Most of them will be released someday. Those men will need to adjust to a world requiring accountability and responsibility. Transitioning will be a challenge, given that our prisoners have enormous confines placed uponthem in prison.

A visitor to any state correctional facility will see most inmates dressed in orange jumpsuits and soft slip-on shoes. These men experience many dehumanizing measures on a daily basis, having virtually all aspects of their daily lives controlled by the state. To allow some basic decencies, like shoes or work boots, especially for those inmates who exhibit accountability and responsibility, is an important step forward to their successful return to society.

One officer lost his life to a violent offender. That tragedy is one too many, but that should not necessarily translate into a wholesale punishment across the system. If we wish to increase safety in our society at large by improving our rates of rehabilitation and recidivism, we may want to think twice before leaping to a reactionary solution for all. DAVID B. FAWCETT

Oakmont

We welcome your opinion

the Republican playbook to exploit a culture that puts profits above everything, including honor and truth. It has allowed an incompetent, unfit, dangerously corrupt, immoral pathological liar to occupy the most powerful office in the world.

How can we stop the complete destruction of our democracy? Look in the mirror: You are the weapon, stupid! Wake up before it is too late. THOMAS G. LIEBENGUTH

Jefferson Hills

Political debates can be deceiving because optics often blind us from messages buried beneath double-talk. On Saturday, at the end of WTAE’s debate for candidates in the 18th Congressional District special election, Conor Lamb stated he hopes to take an oath as our congressman. He said his oath wouldn’t be one that is Democratic or Republican or about anyone’s agenda because “we’ve had enough of agendas.” What? Although his statement had a collegiate kumbaya tone, it was a glaring revelation of his naivete and lack of readiness for Congress.

Fact: The winner of this race will join his political party and accept its platform, from which an agenda is driven. Deceptively positioning himself as independent of both parties almost worked until I replayed Mr. Lamb’s answers to previous questions. He proudly endorsed the agenda of Obamacare, more spending, more taxes, legalizing marijuana and paying government to fix society’s problems that were caused by government in the first place.

He’s committed to an agenda, and it’s the same costly agenda voters wildly opposed in November 2016. He said so much about so little because he knows little about the role he seeks. Integrity and experience are the languages voters want, not evasive double-talk. SUSANNA DeJEET

Irwin

The fact that 18th Congressional District candidate Rick Saccone’s ads are almost entirely negative attack ads speaks volumes about his lack of character. Let’s clean up the swamp and send a positive, qualified person to Congress: Vote for Conor Lamb. LISA SCHWERDT

Bethel Park

Hooray for Michael Moser, who took the time to correct the record of a congressional candidate, Conor Lamb (Feb. 23 letter, “These Attacks on Conor Lamb Are Offensive; He Has Integrity”). Mr. Lamb’s record has been misrepresented by the National Republican Congressional Committee’s malicious political point of view.

TV stations have a responsibility for what they put on the air. Most voters look for accurate information in making their decisions. Those ads to which Mr. Moser refers should never have gotten on the air. MARY LARSEN

Mt. Lebanon