From: MTWT Connecticut [mailto:ct_mtwt@yahoo.com]
Sent: Friday, July 02, 2004 12:25 PM
To: Governor Rell
Subject: WISHING YOU LUCK AND MUCH SUCCESS
Dear Governor Rell,
We, at Making the Walls Transparent and the Connecticut
Lolits, wish you the wisdom of Solomon in guiding our great State of
Connecticut to better times.
We also implore you to consider prison issues, remembering
that most of these inmates will some day be released to society and be
living among us.
Rehabilitation is one of the most important issues.
Rehabilitation programs help inmates reenter society with a much better sense
of direction for a positive and more productive life out in society.
Transferring inmates to out of state facilities is not the
answer. It's bad for our inmates as well as our Correctional Officers.
Why should this state pay someone else's Correctional Officers when we have
our own to worry about? These Officers have families to support. Let's not put
them on unemployment lines. Instead, money intended to pay for housing inmates
in other states should be applied to repairing some of our prisons, thereby
improving the living conditions for our inmates.
Money should also be set aside to provide better Medical
care. I receive approximately 10 to 20 letters per day from many inmates
throughout the state of CT, and their biggest complaints are the lack of
Medical care and the programs the facilities claim to have, but in reality,
don't.
They say that Life after Prison is good, if you can survive
the brutality of life behind bars where rapes, assaults and deaths are regular
occurrences. Why are government officials and citizens not outraged about
the torture of humans and the lack of medical treatment they receive, along
with the bad food that these men, women and juveniles receive within our own
prison systems?
Our billion dollar correctional system is very badly broken
and failing us as a country, at an enormous cost to all. Maybe together, we
here in Connecticut can start by repairing ours.
Thanks primarily to our counterproductive war on drugs, and
many other issues, the United States is the most incarcerated nation on
the planet and in history. Even though we have fewer than 5 percent of the
world's population, we now have more than 25 percent of the world's prisoners.
In other words, one out of every four prisoners in the world is locked in an
American jail or prison. This deserves our shame and outrage - certainly not
our pride.
We pray that you will see the harm that this system is
creating not only for those who are incarcerated, but for all their loved
ones, as well.
It has been documented that children who have a parent
behind bars are much more likely to be incarcerated, themselves. It is more
than time to end this cycle. But, it cannot be stopped until people who run
the state step in and begin the processes needed to end it. Please help
CT to begin this process, as you are the one who has the ability to help so
many who truly need it.
Sincerely,
Joanna Ferris Director: MTWT
Connecticut Lolits group
From:
Jones,
Denise
To: MTWT
Connecticut
Sent: Monday, July 12, 2004 2:05 PM
Subject: RE: WISHING YOU LUCK AND MUCH SUCCESS
Governor Rell responds:
Thank you, Joanna for your kind words. I appreciate
you taking the time to voice your concerns on a matter that is important to
you. There are many challenges before me as I assume the governorship of
Connecticut. I promise to do my best to make decisions that are in the
best interests of all of Connecticut’s citizens.
Thanks again.
Sincerely,
Governor M. Jodi Rell
(New York -WABC, June 21, 2004) — When
Connecticut Governor John Rowland steps down tonight as announced, Lieutenant
Governor Jodi Rell will take his office and serve the remainder of his term
through the end of 2006.
From
the AP: The News in Photographs
First elected as Lieutenant Governor in 1994, Rell is currently in her
third term and is the state's first Republican female lieutenant governor.
This move would make her the state's first Republican female governor
and only the second female governor in Connecticut's history. Democrat Ella
Grasso served as Connecticut's governor from 1975 to 1980. Grasso was the
first female governor in the nation elected to office.
Rell would become the ninth female governor currently in office.
Republican female governors are currently serving in Montana, Hawaii, and
Utah. Democratic female governors are currently serving in Delaware,
Arizona, Kansas, Michigan, and Louisiana.
Connecticut would become just the fifth state in the nation to have
had two female governors in its history. The others are Texas, New
Hampshire, Kansas, and Arizona, which currently has its third female
governor.
