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University Daily Kansan, February 8, 1983
Opinion
Prison problem a crime
Each week, 130 prisoners are pouring into the already overflowing California prison system. The 12 existing state institutions were built to house 25,600 inmates. This month, the prison population reached 33,939 — about the size of the city of Olathe.
There is no longer enough concrete and steel to pen these people in. This spring, at San Quentin and another state institution, 2,000 prisoners will be quartered in tents.
But overcrowding is not just California's problem. The Texas prison system has used large tents for 2,600 prisoners after a federal court order, spurred by overcrowding problems, ended the practice of three men to a cell.
But just as new buildings, work programs and early release dates have not erased surging prison populations nationwide, neither are tents the answer.
So what is the answer? Perhaps there isn't one. Certainly there are no easy answers. But is anyone looking?
No state, especially Kansas, can pass this problem off as a "West coast
problem," a "Southern problem" or anyone else's problem. Overcrowding is a national problem, one that every state faces.
Kansas' new Department of Corrections secretary, Michael Barbara, must not rely on the ineffective, short-sighted answers that are currently in use. He must work with law enforcement agencies, the courts and the legislature and acknowledge that corrections encompasses more than putting great numbers of people behind bars and keeping them there.
"The prisons need a safety valve of some kind or we will have chaos on our hands," a California corrections official warned Sunday.
But Kansas cannot wait for the answer from elsewhere. Kansas must not wait for the answer. After decades of following the ill-conceived prison systems of others, the United States needs a leader with sound, effective ideas.
Kansas, with a new secretary of the Department of Corrections, can be that leader.
Apathy of black KU students making hard times tougher
The saying goes "when white America catches a cold, black America gets the flu." If this is the case, white America needs to see a doctor and receive treatment because we are slowly but surely dying.
What's so sad is that our advanced sickness is nobody's fault but our own. Through a lethargic attitude, we are cutting our own life's blood. Through apathy toward campus and national affairs, we are stabbing a heart already weakened by Reaganomics.
Instead of trying to save ourselves, though, we'll probably sit around and watch as we slowly whither away to nothing.
What happened to the KU black student during these last few years? Heck, I don't know. What makes a group of people so ambivalent that they won't help themselves?
Black students of KU, we are state. We are a staged pool of frustration, indifference and disunity. We could grow tall and strong, but we
ALVIN REID
Guest Columnist
continually stunt our growth. Lack of use has made strong vocal chords completely mute. Our ears have grown deaf to the world crashing in around us.
it seems that we'd rather relax and listen to the mindless drabble of Grand Master Flash than take an interest in affairs that concern us. We'd rather gab about a mechanical beat any Wuritzler organ can produce than protect our right to survive.
Does anyone know or care that the office of minority affairs is under review and could be snatched away? Does anyone know or care that the office of minority affairs is under review and could black students attend KU every fall?
Personally, I think the answers to these questions by most of KU's black student population is a resounding no!
Most of KU's residence halls have black caucasus. Did any of them notice that residence halls rate will increase again next year? No, they were busy daring people to come to their
parties because KU's party reputation is shopping.
And speaking of parties, let's talk about KU's black Greek system. I'm a member of a black fraternity and I'd like to know if we can do it party. Two two weeks at Black Pan Hellenic Council meetings the majority of time is devoted to Greek culture, "and," "let's not bump heads on party night."
During the early 20th century, the major black fraternities and sororites were created to promote scholarship and unity among all blacks on campus and in the community. While these things may exist within our individual organizations, we do a pitiful job of relating to one another and with the independent black student. Rather than work together, we publicly insult one another, undermining our already shaky existence.
During February, Black History Month, many black KU students will find themselves caught up in the emotion of many imaginative and interesting black-oriented programs. However, when March 1 rolls around, all the energy, emotion, motivation and excitement it will again be time to slough off the responsibility of being a black student at a predominantly white university.
And what will this column accomplish?
Probably nothing. How many black students read the Kansan editorial page? For that matter, how many black students read the newspaper at all? Certainly not enough, or I wouldn't be writing this.
You see, KU black students, I'm purposely trying to agravate you with this column. As Marcus Garvey said, "black people never see themselves until their backs are against the wall," and I'm pushing each and one of you.
n if you agree with me, write. If you want to kick my behind, write. The most important thing is that we as black people start exercising our right to be heard.
If you think I'm wrong to go off like this, write the Kansas and let the University know.
are learning to prove me wrong. Please prove me wrong. But you can prove me wrong. Let this University know that there is another side to this story. Let this University know you're here and that you have a right to survive.
But tribullity, I don't think anyone will write, I
think the majority of black students will go right
through it.
Time is running out
Morals of few being foisted on many
Question: Whose business would conservatives say it is to decide what is right for an individual? The individual's or the government's?
Why, the government's, of course.
President Reagan and his conservative buddies are waging war on America, a war attempting to force, by way of the government, the moral values of a vocal few onto the
From Reagan, Phyllis Schlafly, Jerry Falwell, Sens, Jesse Helms, R-N.C., and Orrin Hatch, R-Ultah, to the campus group, the KU Conservative Forum, a few die-hard moralists want to re-kill the Equal Rights Amendment, deny women their right to choose abortion and intrude on the privacy of teenagers who seek contraceptives.
The last effort recently has come to fruition
The Reagan administration two weeks ago created a Department of Health and Human Services regulation that nasty word Reagan says he hates) ordering federally-funded clinics to notify parents within 10 days after their child has received contraception. It also creates cases in which the child is 17-years-old or younger, if not blocked by the courts, will take effect Feb. 25.
The moralists are asking the same question, and I don't blame them for being concerned.
Proponents of the regulation say that when a clinic notifies parents that their child has asked for contraceptives, the family will be encouraged to discuss the child's sexuality. The proponents argue that with parental guidance, parents choose to wait until they are older to have sex.
The facts seem to support the critics of the regulation. A Johns Hopkins study of 4,000 girls found that most teenage girls are already in their teens months before they seek the advice of a clinic.
Critics of the regulation say that it will only scare teenagers from clinics and that they will have sex anyway, without contraceptives, thereby increasing the risks of pregnancy.
But the most important question is not why the government is telling parents about their children's sex lives, but why a 16-year-old is having sexual intercourse in the first place.
Here's why Schlathy and Helms are worried: 20 percent of all children live with one parent, according to the Census Bureau. Eighty percent of all males and 66 percent of all females have
had intercourse by age 19, according to a report published in 1881 by the Alan Guttmacher Institute, an affiliate of Planned Parenthood Federation of America, Inc.
The study also shows that 66 percent of the girls who have had sex said they never used contraceptives. If current trends continue, 40 percent of girls in the United States under will have become pregnant at least once
DAN PARELMAN
during their teens, and 70 percent of these will have abortions, according to the report.
Although the moralists' concerns are real, their solutions are not.
To believe that forcing clinics to squeal on teenagers will bring families together is as naive as the moralists with teenagers were. Sex and its consequences should be openly discussed in American families, but it is not the government's place to bring this about.
Rather, it is the teenager's responsibility to handle sex with care. If we assume that teenagers enjoy the freedom to have sexual relations — and since no one is denying them — we should treat them with respect. We can reason that teenagers also have the responsibility to guard against pregnancy.
Of course, no one can be responsible without knowledge. That is where the family can help.
However, if parents are too afraid to acknowledge that their children could be having
KU street crossings hazardous
Their attempts to withhold federal funds for abortions illustrate the moralists' narrow regard for women. They believe that the rights of a fetus supercede those of a grown woman, and they believe that the government should dictate what a woman does with her body.
Even if Mother Schaffy tells us 1,000 times that we're all going to drown in a sea of gonorrhea, unmarried people, whether 16, 26 or 66 years old, will continue having sex.
Similarly, in their zeal to crystallize their concept of womanhood - smiling in the kitchen and smiling in the bedroom - the moralists have relentlessly fought the ERA.
Neither are the other privacy-intruding proposals espoused by the moralists tolerant.
After three years of being a pedestrian at KU,
I have developed a scientific method of using crosswalks. As I approach the crosswalk, I carefully look both ways. If any cars are coming,
I see whether they will be able to stop in time if I venture out into the street.
All of these efforts are fraught with the fear of change. But the "Leave it to Beaver" world that the moralsians want us to return to is long gone.
Telepathy is necessary to determine whether the driver will stop or try to race the student.
Their platform of sexual ignorance, resistance to the overdue changes in our society and legislated morality will only aggravate the pans of change.
Men have been defying death for centuries. Some climb mountains. Some break speed records. Some play football.
The more helpful, though tougher, solution is to encourage openness about sex, openness about the feelings men and women have toward each other and a willingness to let each individual choose what is right for them, be it working, staying at home, having sex or abstaining.
If the answer is yes I take a deep breath, look at the driver with a steely glance, place my foot on the pedal.
much as some people try to race trains. But in case of a collision on campus, the car is not the one that is demolished.
As it is, besides split-second timing and fast reflexes, a student must be able to read a driver's mind to successfully cross a street without loss of limb or life.
As for me, I don't like to brag, but I perform daily feats of such daring that all other deeds seem insignificant by comparison. I stare death straight in the face by walking across KU pedestrian crosswalks when cars are approaching.
sex, then the junior high schools must provide information about contraceptives.
Even Indiana Jones would rather tussle with the ninety Nazis than walk across a KU crosswalk, I am not talking about the crosswalk between Wattson Library and Flint Hall at 10:30 Monday morning, when drivers sit glumly in their cars for 10 minutes until the solid mass of students crossing the street dissipates into classrooms.
I am referring to the situation in which there is only a car, a crosswalk and me. Opposing interests are brought to a confrontation right here on the naked streets of KU. I want the car's driver to wait for me to cross the street, and the driver does not want to wait.
In fact, an overwhelming majority of Americans favor sex education in schools, according to the Census Bureau. However, only 40 percent of respondents have been taught about birth control. 30 percent have been taught about birth control.
This method does not always work. Once, after I stepped into a crosswalk, an older gentleman speeded up and swerved around me. I felt like one of those cones I had to drive around in driver's education class.
The crosswalks that take the most skill and daring are those in front of the Kansas Union, 1.
feet until I'm on the other side. I stare at my feet when crossing because if they leave the ground, I'll know the car did not stop.
And then there's the moralists' solution of abstinence.
JEANNE FOY
Students could better bear being pedestrians if those drivers allowed on campus did not behave as though it was just one large thoroughfare.
Often, after successfully crossing a street, be it jayhawk Boulevard or Naismith Drive, with adrenalin pumping in my veins and the flush of triumph on my cheeks, I wonder why KU does not organize crosswalks intramurals, for where else does one experience, in its purest form, the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat?
There is one vehicle that is the uncontested king of the road, the KU bus. As far as I am concerned, the bus has the right of way anytime, although I have seen students with suicidal intent and frequently access to path IU rather breathe in the bus's exhaust or risk being a human pancake.
Cars are not the only problem, though. Danger also comes in the shape of a bicycle. Bicycles are quieter and less noticeable than cars. Unwary pedestrians often look up just in time to jump out of the way of a bicyclist because bicyclists never deviate from their paths. They have a destination in mind, and neither rain nor sleet nor pedestrian will stop them.
recommend that only seasoned veterans attempt to cross the street in front of the Union. (Freshmen should find some other place to cash their checks.)
Much experience is necessary to maneuver past parked cars, lumbering buses, whizzing cars and mopeds. After paying for textbooks, however, one wonders whether being hit by a car can be any more painful.
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