It seems as if our esteemed editor has never been the victim of a violent crime against either him or a member of his family. I suggest Mr. Hering take off his ACLU sweatshirt and remove his Rush Limbaugh ballcap and take a look at reality. In Mr. Hering's editorial (April 26), he questions the success of the Oregon penal system in its attempts to rehabilitate convicted felons, and casts further aspersions against the Bureau of Prisons' programs to rehabilitate criminals.

Oregon's recidivism rate (those released felons who are under supervision and have not been convicted of another crime within three years of such supervision) is 30.4 percent, and 70 percent of released (under supervision) felons have successfully re-entered society.

The Prison Reform and Inmate Work Act of 1994 provides that all eligible state inmates will be enrolled in a work program or job training. This has provided a significant improvement over previous statistics, and given parolees a chance at turning their lives around.

I agree that there are many convicted felons who've earned their freedom by hard work and a true devotion to rehabilitation and deserve the opportunity to be reassumed into law-abiding society, but I believe you, Mr. Hering, were too swayed by a letter from a convicted killer to be objective in your assessment of the situation.

It's true that 70 percent of supervised convicts have been able to return to society in a productive capacity, but I think you are wrong in condemning the judicial process of adding consecutive years to a criminal's sentence.

The ADAs and DAs are looking for marks in the "W" column, and a conviction is a definite "W," even if it costs a conviction on a few additional counts - at least the felon goes away for the most serious charge.

The reason I asked you to remove your "Rush Limbaugh" hat is because you stated a lot of problems in your Sunday editorial, but, as Rush is so good at, failed to provide any solutions.

Douglas Bauer, Albany

Actually, the editor didn't question the prisons' rehabilitation programs; they apparently worked in the case at issue. And the solution suggested was to let prison terms for different acts in the same crime spree involving murder run concurrently as long as the longest is life with a 25-year minimum. That would give a rehabilitated convict some hope that he would not die in prison.