Dear Editor:

Not since the Governor selected Golan Cipel -- an obviously unqualified foreign national -- to head New Jersey's Department of Homeland Security, has our citizens safety been so ill-exposed. The recent statements of Devon Brown, the Administration's Commissioner of Department of Corrections, leads me to ask the question, "Whose side is he on, anyway?"

Mr. Brown has been codifying an administrative policy by giving prisoners accelerated, early release for good behavior. Along with this corrections policy, the administration has sent word to the states parole officers: look the other way when drug and alcohol criminals violate their parole.

This policy ignores a number of facts. First, 40% of prisoners entering New Jersey's prisons this year have been guests of our prison system before. Allowing convicted criminals early release will only add to these numbers. Second, the administration's policy of discounting drug and alcohol violations of parolees sends an ominous signal that drug and alcohol related crimes are "victimless." Unfortunately, drug and alcohol abuse are the seeds for many of our state's more violent and hurtful crimes.

The major impetus behind this ill-conceived social engineering is the desire to trim the state's budget by reducing inmate population. This policy is not only shortsighted but dangerous. It is also demeaning and insensitive to all the victims that these criminals abused, as well as a contradiction to local and federal anti-crime priorities.

An increased prison population means law enforcement, our judicial system and our state's criminal policies are working. This administration would be ill-advised to open up the floodgates and let our prisoners out just to save a buck.

Respectfully,

Joe Pennacchio
Assemblyman-District-26