Your View 6/24: punishment and crime

I felt compelled to tell my story. I am a 26-year-old single parent of three young kids and I am incarcerated. Though my crime was senseless, I take full responsibility for my actions.

I often go back to that night, and even weeks before the night that changed my life, and I still cannot find the reason for my actions. At the time, I was going through some mental problems that I had been previously hospitalized for. I am deeply sorry for what I did, and if I could take that night back, I would be at home raising my children like a mother should.

I have been placed in an environment where there is very little rehabilitation. This place is full of institutionalization. We are punished for petty things on a daily basis. I feel that every crime that is committed shouldn't be corrected through the severity of our unjust system. Instead of placing people in an environment such as the one I have been placed in, some should be placed in other controlled environments, depending on their own personal attitudes toward trying to become productive citizens. I made a very huge mistake when I committed my crime, and there is no excuse for what I did except for the fact that I needed help with the things that were going on with me at the time.

No one was physically hurt, and I feel as though I shouldn't be punished to the extent that I have been. I was given a first degree robbery, first degree assault and armed criminal action. Being ignorant to the seriousness of these crimes, I plead guilty. I am now serving a 12-year sentence with and 85 percent stipulation. I'm not even eligible to go before the parole board until December 2009 and I don't see any justification in that. The very thing that I was concerned about the most concerning the victim is the very thing that is being stripped away from me.

I couldn't see myself taking a mother away from her children and that is why I couldn't cause any physical harm to the victims in my crime. I do have a heart and it is filled with love. That is why, even during the course of my crime, I still thought about how I would affect other people's lives if I did actually shoot or attempt to take their lives. I just couldn't bring myself to take the lives of the victims in my case. My main reasoning is that I, Christie Pulliam, would have been responsible for taking a mother away from her children.

I feel trapped in a system that does not care anything about my healing process, or how because of the severity of this punishment is affecting my children and family who love me. I don't know much about the law, so I really feel there isn't much I can do on my own. Please, anyone, help me help myself. I don't know what to do, but I am willing to do whatever it takes to become a free citizen out in society, doing something positive and productive with my life for my children and my community. I am not trying to get out of my punishment because I think that I do deserve to be punished. I just don't feel that it should be to the extent of time that I have been given. I was told one thing about the time I would have to do, but I was given something altogether different. If there is anyone who can and will help me with my case, please offer your services and they will be gladly and greatly appreciated and accepted.

When we victimize people, we not only affect that one person, but we affect the lives of many loved ones, and I am speaking of myself when I make that statement. We all do wrong; we just don't all get caught. I was raised in a small town in the south called Kennett and I am now doing time in WERDCC in a small town called Vandalia, Mo. I have been given a number that will likely be with me for the rest of my life, 1025740. This is supposed to be a correctional facility, but I see little correction and a whole lot of unrealistic power struggles.

There are some good things that I have gotten out of my incarceration. I have received a more intimate relationship with God. I have learned how to love myself and I have also learned how to deal with things that make me angry in an acceptable way that will benefit myself and others. If I could talk to the victims in my case, I would first let them know that I am ultimately sorry and ask their forgiveness. I pray that they are having a progressive healing process, as I pray for healing from God. At the moment, there is no counseling being given to me. I have only my prayers to God to confide with. I may not have caused any physical harm, but I am almost sure that I caused some mental anguish. I pray that they can some day find it in their hearts to forgive me. God has forgiven me and that is without a doubt.

I will end by saying if any of you have issues that you are yet to deal with, please find a way through God to do so. If those issues aren't properly dealt with, and you keep them buried deep within and you allow them to come out on their own, the consequences may be more than you can bear. If I do have to do all of this time, it will not be in vain. I may be in a prison building, but my heart, mind and soul are absolutely free, all thanks to God.

Sincerely, a mother desperately seeking to be reunited with herself and her children.

Christie Pulliam

I am very bewildered of the laws and statutes in America over children's abuses by the clergy of Catholic churches.

Why have these priests and accomplices not been arrested like any other man would be? If a clergyman in any Protestant church committed the same wicked, horrific offenses as rapes, sworn to secrecy, they would not be free. The bishops, priests, cardinals and even the Pope in Rome are free as birds.

I'm very certain the abuser of any Protestant church would be handcuffed, read his Miranda rights, placed in the back seat of a police car and hauled off to jail, as any felon or rapist would be. Then he would have his day in court, not a meeting for the church leaders to discuss the tangled issue that finally became unraveled.

Thank God! We all as humans get here the same way, through childbirth, no matter our vocation. It seems this is a conflict of equality for a certain group of people. Eric Patterson, a victim who killed himself over the pain he could never rid himself of, is an example of what these merciless priests and clergy left behind. No amount of money can ever replace a child.

I would like to know whose decision it is to let a multitude of bishops determine the fate on these evil child abusers who have injured so many trusting and innocent children through psychological and mental anxiety. The seeds of evil have been strewn throughout the world for many years.

"Christian" means "Christ-like," and the rapist's lifestyle is contrary to God's holy word. I think all people deserve a legitimate answer from any judicial authority or district attorney who governs to administer justice to all equally.

Talk about worthy justice, how many fighting America has John Lindh killed?

Arneita B. Price, East Prairie