After reading your July 7 article "Prison shuts the book on novelist" I was disappointed but not at all surprised. My pen pal in Raleigh's Central Prison is a talented artist who has created numerous cards with intricate flowers or cartoons for me and my family. This past May prison officials confiscated all his art supplies: ink pens, gel pens and cardstock, citing them as "potentially dangerous contraband."

How is his pen with pink ink more dangerous than his pen with black ink that he uses to write letters? How is a positive, creative outlet for men locked up all day more dangerous than bored, frustrated men locked up all day?

Perhaps society seeing productive men drawing pink Care-Bears on cardstock or writing novels that are publication-worthy is just too incongruous with the orange jumpsuits for our prison officials to defend society's treatment of them. The real danger is sending these men back into society without skills and without the ability to make a living outside of criminal activity. We need prison reform!

Jennifer Slusser

Raleigh

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