Your April 26 article, Shackles, hope, and TV: 8 hours inside the Alpena County Jail by Julie Riddle, was engaging, poignant and exceptionally well-written. It made my heart ache for nearly everyone involved in our failing prison system. Human nature makes laws a requirement in our society and punishment for breaking those laws necessary, but that doesn’t make inmates irredeemable.

Every sheep led astray can go home again. Whatever controversy exists about the Alpena Sheriff and the new jail, that doesn’t mean that the people they are there to house, feed, and presumably rehabilitate, are anything less than human. Riddle gives us a snapshot of broken lives, hardened hearts, and the slow, monotonous tick of time, but she shows us the possibility of hope and redemption as well.

My thoughts and prayers are with the inmates, their families, and the officers who stand on the other side of the bars charged with caring for so many lost souls.

DAWN MANTAS,

Ossineke