Dear Editor:
I attended the meeting in Summerland re: the Correctional Institute.
While reading the many letters to the editor, I noticed time and again people think when an individual is released they will come into our community.
The speakers stated they are given transportation back to their own home town.
They also stated prisoners are very often changed from one facility to another quite often.
Families do not relocate for a two-year period with no guarantee their loved one will be kept in one location.
I lived in Oakville, Ontario for approximately 20 years and raised my family in a safe community without any incidents or feelings of fear.
We were five kilometres away from Syl Apps Youth and Secure Treatment Centre, a facility for adolescents in Canada.
This was in the middle of an industrial/commercial area, one block away from the biggest mall in Oakville.
Oakville is approximately 30 to 40 kilometres from Toronto.
North of Oakville, 25 kilometres away, was a smaller city called Milton where there was a medium/maximum correctional centre for offenders.
The correctional institutes are well constructed and manned.
I have difficulty trying to understand why people are so afraid.
Where are these thoughts and attitudes coming from? I can only surmise from movies and fictional books.
Laurinda Dorn
Summerland
