University of South Carolina Libraries
Closed Board meetings stifle press freedom The Board of Trustees met in their traditionally evasive manner this weekend. Just for openers, the Board met at Hickory Knob State Park, about 70 miles out of town, on Monday morning when classes were in session. It should be remembered that the members of the Gamecock staff are students, and they do have to tend to such mundane tasks as attending class. Needless to say, this problem could have been circumvented had the Board met in Columbia. Annthar plncivo mononi-nr fKot ?-* - 11 r ? .u<wvnw> viuuk V IIIUIII.U?U mat 3CC111S LU WUX IV LJUllt? well I or the Board is meeting in executive session. For those unfamiliar with the Freedom of Information Act (FOI), executive session is the gaping loophole in the FOI which allows public bodies to hold closed meetings, free from the watchful eye of the press. Such was the case Saturday when, according to Information Services, the board held "adminictratiup hriofinrrc nn ~ r^n J ?1 .......w.txvif v ui ivnugo un UV.CUU1CS iu uc luiiuwcu wnen selecting senior officers of the University." At the same executive session the board members were briefed by President Patterson on his "suggestions for a Long-range reorganization of the administrative structure of the University and of the Board of Trustees." While we recognize the need to hold executive session when discussing personnel and contract negotiations, this privilege is, to say the least, much abused. In fact, the only time when Li: . l J: ' ? ' ... puunc uuuies cannot noia executive session is when that body votes on a particular matter. Under such a system, the public most often is not informed of decisions until after they are reached, a practice that deprives the public of any meaningful input in those decisions. Certainly, Patterson's suggestions to the Board for longrange reorganization should be shared with the rest of the University, as it will eventually affect everyone. There is no reason why these and other matters should not be discussed openly in public. $1,000 reward offered By now. everyone is probably sick of the Bicentennial, but we have come across an Independependence Day-related item that appears worthy of your attention. An organization called Common Sense is offering a $1,000 reward for the best "Redeclaration of Independence". The deadline for entering, appropriately enough, is July 4.1976. Common Sense has offered some examples that "can be used changed, improved or ignored." '200 years ago our nation was founded in protest to end unjust taxation and the tyrannical control of our private lives, today the Despot Prince has been replaced by an Extravagant Bureaucracy. A monster government of our own making which consumes our vital substance in ever increasing tax demands. Demands that first destroy our incentives, then demands that stifle communication and foster apathy. Finally, demands that promote welfare and destroy work ethics, followed by those tributes to Gotham that ultimately breed dishonesty, poverty, crime, and violence " entries must De cieariy typed in DiacK on unite ?'2 x ll paper. Type your name on the top right corner of each page. The date, July 4, 1976. should be typed at the top center of the first page. Staple more than one page at the top left corner. Type your name, address and . phone number on the last page and sign it. If any of our readers should choose to enter the contest, and we heartily encourage you to do so. please send a carbon copy of your entry to the Gamecock. Drawer A. USC. We will select the best entry of the ones we receive and publish it in the issue following July 4. Entries should be sent to: - Redeclaration of Independence 1976 . ! n o - c-u summon ^ense Box 1776 4 San Marcos. California 92069 m ??j t-! [ History reminds us no I June 10 Lover" is banned from the malls Knaget Bisnop, accused by Postmaster General Arthui by the Reverend Samuel Parris of Ellsworth Summerfield, wh( being a witch, is hanged in Salem labels it "pornographic, smutty Mass. obscene and filthy." 1871?An American military 1963?George C. Wallace force lands in Korea to protect U.S. Governor of Alabama, stands ir interests. the doorway of the University 01 1958?A House subcommittee Alabama auditorium to preveni discloses evidence that Boston two black students from entering industrialist Bernard Goldfine paid June 12 hotel bills for Presidential 1957?Gen. Samuel T. Williams Assistant Sherman Adams, sup- head of the U.S. Advisory Group ir posedly in exchange for Adams' Vietnam, remarks, "We hav? .intercession with the SEC in exactly 342 men, the numbei regard to an alleged securities allowed by the Geneva Armisticc violation by Goldfine. Conference. It would be a breeze il June li we had more." iThe Gai view; s Voices from within Prisoners are p By George H. Deputy How different are we? At this point in corrections history, public anxiety about crime is so high that the average American tends to consider all prisoners the basest of hoodlums. With 'law and order' at full volume, legislators and editorial writers call for maximum security prisons. In many areas, judges are increasingly reluctant to use probations. Observing the rising tide of sentenced offenders, "hard-liners" see nothing amiss in demanding that a brand new prison, designed for 600 men, double its population simply by double-decking all single cells. What matter that the dining, vocational, recreation, and shop facilities will not accommodate such ?mi Krtno 9 Crvlf mM/vnlnttM aa! nMM/vioM aa iiuniucis; ocii (jiwiauucu cjvpci us aiuiuuiitc, "They violated the law, didn't they? If you house those bums in tents and surround the tents with rolled barbed wire, that's quite good enough." All of which prompts one to take a close look at the average offender coming into the nation's prisons. Just how unique is he from the rest of you? Those who work in corrections know that the typical prisoner is not that different from many other people in the free world. In fact, Behind the wall of Attica, Michigan City, Lucasville, Ohio are a consiaeraoie numoer 01 ratner ordinary, otten likeable individuals. What humane warden or correctional officer does not have friends who were once inmates in their institutions-prisons who still keep in tough through telephone calls, cards at Christmas, or an occasional visit? All of the above is not to say that prisons do not house some dangerous, "mad dog" individuals. The problem is that the public, considering only the Charles Manson stereotype portrayed in the most sensational news stories, imagines all the offenders in that light. Yet, the old pros in this business put the percentage of vicious offenders needing maximum confinement at roughly 10 per cent of the prison population. If one characteristic can describe today's typical prisoner, it is that he copes miserably with your complex world. In prison and after prison, the profile is the same: single, under 25 years of age, average intelligence, poverty background, broken home, claims a tenth grade education (but tests at u ? ~1?~1 i?\ A: ii \jiiiy juiuui bciiuui icvci;, vuv;tiiiuiictny unskilled, and with little previous work experience. At an age when other young people are beginning to make their own way, the average offender lacks the basic educational and social skills to make a living. All of you, even those with stable family situations and blessed with educational advantages, have known moments of temporary panic and anxiety, when nothing seems to go right. Think then of the mental state of persons who know nothing about budgeting, are suckered into installment payments. are unfamiliar with bank accounts and insurance premiums, and suddenly find their world coming to pieces when abruptly laid off menial jobs. Unable to cope, they often act on impulse, believing a burglary or robbery will end their dilemma. These same individuals, once in prison, react relatively well to the structured prison routine. t to make same mis i Secretary Medgar Evers is shot in Equally to blam the back and killed as he enters his McCarthy, "in i > home in Jackson, Miss. immense and an ir June 13 to dwarf any prev 1968-The crew of a U.S. in the history of helicopter, "misunderstanding" shall's "fast-ris i the radioed instructions of a Dwight D. Eisenl F Vietnamese Ranger officer, fires a June 15 t rocket and a blast of machine gun 1913?America* . lire ai a aouin Vietnamese com- end the More mand post in Saigon, killing, Philippines by e , among others, the Saigon Chief of men, women an< i Police. assault on the sai > June 14 an entire commui 1951?Sen. Joseph McCarthy liquidated on Ma attacks Gen. George Marshal 1971?The U. I author of the Marshall Plan, for obtains a four-da; "always and invariably serving to prevent the i I the world policy of the Kremlin." from printing mecock point people too 'i F While few prisoners will speak favorably of their confinement, they have few decisions to make. With their lives planned for them, they settle into prison life much as the career army man becomes accustomed to the ordered regiment of the military. Unless embittered by a particularly brutal experience, many men leave prison with genuine intentions of "going straight." As more and more court commitments flood our penal institutions, existing treatment and vocational programs reach only a fraction of prison populations. The typical young offender returns to the free world, just as unskilled as when he left it bearing the added stigma of "felon" to bar him from employment. If a parole officer could really help him to meet life's vicissitudes in managing money, getting to work on time, and coping with domestic problems, the parolee might be able to stay out of trouble. In most instances, however, parole caseloads are so unmanageable that suoervisinn mu?it mai _ K WW w * v. k.j ?J i VMl guidance, is out of the question. The old pressures mount, and within a matter of months, he is back in prison. If only a structured, somewhat protected environment could be provided until the parolee has had time to fit himself satisfactorily into free society, you just might reduce the "revolving door" syndrome by a few turns. Ac TTllrtDMA ? '* ' " i.c ucua, ^iic: idiuous socialist oi tne early 1900's once said, following his own prison experience, "the inmates of prisons are not the irretrievable, vicious, and depraved element they are commonly believed to be, but on the average they are like yourselves." Kd. Note: (ieorge II. Deputy is an inmate at the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility. Mr. DMintv's t - I J ? writings will appear regularly in the Gamecock this summer under the column "Voices from Within." Anyone wishing to correspond with Mr. Deputy can write to him at S.O.C.F., box 787, Lucasville, Ohio 45648. stakes twice IP. afPftrHinw tn Pawrc b ?? i conspiracy so June 16 ifamy so black as 1857?The allegedly corrupt New ious such venture York Municipal Police Force man," in Mar- stages a pitched battle with the iing" protege," New York Metropolitan Police hower. Force, sent by the state legislature to replace it, on the steps of City 1 troons finnllv ii-ii tl. - L? na,,. me resuu: a Diooay victoryl Uprising in the for the Municipals. xterminating 600 1964?Armed white men] d children in an surround the Mt. Zion Methodist me creater where church in Philadelphia, Miss., and, lity was similarly after beating several blacks, burn rch 8, 1906. the church to the ground. S. government y prior injunction few York Times the Pentagon Courtesy of Nathmal Lampoon.^