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Republican
Observations
To The Editor:
There are a couple of observations about the Republican ticket that should be made before the election.
Mr. Allen, the Republican candidate for Governor, proposes to do away with parole for violent criminals-who can argue that this is not a good idea? Well, maybe there are a few things about this proposal candidate Allen should explain before the election. The State Budget for corrections is now, roughly, a half billion dollars. With a 1991 prison population of at least 18,000, that averages out to about $30,000 per prisoner, per year. The number of prisoners in the Virginia Correctional System, serving more than a orte-year sentence has more than doubled in the last ten years, with every prospect of more than doubling again in the next ten years. It is obvious that abolishing parole is going to cause an explosion is spending in a system that already expects to experience huge automatic increases in expenditures, and this does not even cover the tremendous costs of building new prison space.
Yet Mr. Allen has not told the voters how he intends to come up with the millions and millions of dollars it will take to implement his noparole policy. Since Mr. Allen has said he would veto an increase in the sales or income tax, he may fall back on that old political cliche “Governorment Waste,” but there is no way that Mr. Allen can find millions of dollars of “waste” years in, and the criminal justice system cannot be run on a make-it-up-as-we-go-along basis.
The Republican candidate for Lt.
79.1%