Dear George:

Once spent the day with the warden of Rahway State Prison in New Jersey some years ago preparing a column on the subject. The warden, contrary to the Hollywood image, walked freely among the prisoners, responding to their questions, exchanging jokes and pleasantries, more as a friend than a jailer. I kept wondering where the hardened killers were who were scheming to take the warden hostage and hijack a plane to get out of the country. But Hollywood's film makers hadn't heard of Rahway, I suppose.

What struck me most forcibly about the day was the thirst for education by the prisoners. The institution resembled an urban university; the traffic in the cellblocks was like the change of class in high schools; everyone carried books. I couldn't help but think how many billions our society would save annually if we had educated the inmates before they committed their crimes, not after. White people wouldn't wonder why Afro-Americans, who made up the overwhelming majority of Rahway inmates, are so insistent about quality, integrated education, if they spent a day in one of our prisons.

The great tragedy of America is that it will undertake Marshall Plans for Europe and now, presumably, Iraq, without ever considering our own blighted regions and stricken populations. Whitney Young of the National Urban League in 1962 proposed a Marshall Plan for the ghettoes but nobody listened and rioting and destruction that was far more costly followed within a few years.

George Bush has been in office three years now and who has ever heard him once address the systemic problems facing American minorities and the white underclass? While millions of children literally go hungry, Bush took five chefs with him to London so he wouldn't have to dine on British cooking. To me, that says it all.

All best,

Sherwood Ross (electronic mail, November 29, 2003)