Dear Editor:
David Robert's column on "facts" of prison life are not merely untruths, but dangerous caricatures of the truth.
To find out what prison life is really like, Roberts should write a bad check for $55, a felony with a prison sentence of up to 10 years.
As a white, middle-class college senior with no significant criminal record, he would be given a suspended sentence with a fine and restitution, especially if he or his parents would come up with a few hundred dollars for a minimally competent attorney.
If he was a high school drop out with a minimum wage job, after several months in the county jail waiting for the DA and the public defender to get around to his insignificant case, he would find out what prison food is really like.
Alternatively, next time he feels like publishing his opinions on a subject he knows nothing about, he could draw upon what he should have learned in college and do some research first: Such as talking to someone who has been in prison, or going to a meeting of Family and Friends of Prisoners.
Scott A. Weir
economics graduate student