Bail reform, student mental health, Ukraine and oil reserves

Use common sense with bail reform

It would be nice to see some common sense regarding the bail laws ["Hochul's anti-crime plan," News, March 18]. Yes, bail reform was needed, but it went too far. Yes, Gov. Kathy Hochul's proposal will help, but as Rep. Tom Suozzi (D-Glen Cove) had made clear, you also need to allow judges to consider risk. When someone allegedly commits a crime one day, the suspect is back out he next day, then commits another crime that same day. Take a hint. Sure, if a desperate person is arrested for stealing $5 of food, being in jail pending trial is unlikely to be remotely useful. But shoplifting gangs who keep hitting stores need to be locked up pending trial. Let common sense prevail!

Ron Troy, East Northport

Our criminal justice system in New York State is completely broken. To please certain groups, liberal politicians have voted for bail reform, enabling some career criminals to continue with their crime spree, which affects the lives of law-abiding people.

I believe one problem in New York is that some psychiatric hospitals  have been closed, and people who should be getting help are walking the streets. In some cases, they have access to guns or other weapons, and they hurt or kill mostly feeble people who cannot defend themselves. Many of these people have been arrested more than once because of the bail reform initiative, and New York City is now a mess. This law must be changed sanity can be restored.

George T. DeSpirito, Williston Park

This tests a student's mental health

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said that adolescents are experiencing serious mental health problems [“COVID hurts students’ mental health: CDC,” News, April 1]. A return to school will help, but school itself and specifically standardized testing can create mental health problems, even among elementary students. My fifth-grade grandson, Owen Osterman-Davis, explained it this way:

“Too much test prep is bad for your mental health. We have done test prep straight for the last few weeks, and I feel like I’m going to go crazy. It’s made me very depressed. I feel miserable and horrible. We could do the test, but it would be much better if teachers didn’t say that mattered quite as much. You could still see how students do but not make people depressed, anxious or sad.”

He felt it was important to share his experience, and I agree.

Karen Osterman, Port Washington

A place for peace in the classroom

The interest in our schoolchildren’s classroom learning about the Ukraine crisis through news media and social media brings up important alternative reminders that our young people should hear when talking about war [“War stirs student debate,” News, April 1].

Many of us remember pictures and video of U.S. soldiers who had fought in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan returning home in flag-draped coffins. All of our students must learn what the cost of war is. Our students should learn the devastating effects of war with age-appropriate information and the effect that war has on families and their community. Long Island is no exception. When a soldier visits a classroom to talk about war experiences, how much of it is devoted to peacemaking or endless war discussions?

Perhaps part of the dialogue should be that whenever a war memorial is set up in a school corridor with photos of soldiers who attended that school, there should be memorials for peace. Likewise, let’s install next to war memorials in our communities reminders of peace.

Myrna Lee Gordon, Port Jefferson

Choose schools wisely to avoid big loans

It is more than tiresome to hear the consistent drumbeat regarding student loan forgiveness [“Eye on loan forgiveness,” News, April 1]. When you take out a loan, responsibility demands you pay it back.

If the field of study you chose was inadequate to accommodate that, then you chose poorly. I do not wish to pay for your misjudgment. Granted that certain fields — medicine in particular — are inordinately expensive, but most are not as expensive.

Full disclosure: I paid for my children’s education.

Richard M. Frauenglass, Huntington

Cutting into oil reserve dangerous

President Joe Biden has announced the release of 180 million barrels of oil over 180 days (on top of the 80 million already released), to be used from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve [“Biden taps U.S oil reserve,” News, April 1]. Is there a plan to replace this emergency oil?

We’ll be left in a vulnerable position because the reserve was established in case of war. This can be dangerous after seeing the ease with which Russia invaded Ukraine, and we now have concerns about China taking Taiwan and the possibility of Iran getting nuclear weapons.

The Biden administration has asked OPEC and other dictator-run countries to ramp up oil production for us to buy from them. It’s ludicrous to do this while having oil in our country, but after using the reserve oil twice, we’ve seen no reduction in gas prices. This addition of only 5% of our daily consumption will probably still have prices at least $3.50 to $3.75 a gallon anyway.

Anthony Perri, Baldwin