Stalinist Solutions

Statistically, your data favors the success of Community Court (“Courting a Problem,” Jan. 31). For the 17 percent of those eligible for the program, graduates have a 30 percent recidivism rate, which is amazing. The national average is over 75 percent.

We need to focus on the ones who don’t finish the program. My guess is they had no intention of rehabilitation to begin with. How to stop this cycle? I offer a possible solution.

For the “habituates,” force them to go to rehab classes eight hours a day, and give them eight hours sleep; this leaves them three hours for meals, four for exercise and one for a buffer in case they get behind schedule.

As for the individuals who manipulate data to create false arguments: They should be charged with a misdemeanor and held without bail until they repent.    

Vince Loving, Eugene