In response to the Nov. 30 article, "Some cuts at Walla Walla to be felt at Coyote Ridge." When the Department of Corrections readily volunteers information to you -- the public -- via the media, why does the investigative part of reporting always fall by the wayside? Are there no more boundary lines, financial or otherwise, the media at large is unwilling to let the DOC giant cross, all under the color of "budget crisis?"

If you're wondering why the DOC has run out of money, I suggest you read Senate Bill 6157, a "$30 million prison reform package," and Senate Bill 5525 "voucher" program. Both are bureaucratic "Band-Aid" fixes to further thwart, stifle and delay what the DOC, the appellate courts and Legislature continually conspire to hold back a remedy for.

The disease? For over two decades now, if a prisoner cannot provide a DOC-approved release plan and address, DOC ignores the court's order to release a prisoner into his/her community custody, and it is doing so solely by administrative/executive fiat, at unprecedented taxpayer expense.

From this unlikely ex-convict's "inside" point of view, who was recently held in prison three months past his earned release date, the time for change is at hand.

Jerry R. Mullikin, Kennewick