Feedback on the S.Q. News website, www.sanquentinnews.com:
I write to a gentleman on death row in your prison and he occasionally sends me copies of your paper. In the issue for September/October 2010 you carried an article which stated that the recidivism rate in Switzerland is 5%. I live in the UK and our government has prepared a Green Paper on Breaking the Cycle which is currently open for public consultation on how to reduce recidivism which in our country is very high rather like in yours. I read the article yesterday and thought that I would have a wonderful contribution to make to the meeting I was to attend today. This was of an organization to which I belong which planned to discuss the Green paper so that we could put forward submissions to the public consultation. However, the 5% figure seemed so extraordinary that I felt I should check it out first and so I did on the internet. Your evangelical minister might be excellent at training future evangelical priests but unfortunately, he did not have the correct information for recidivism rates in Switzerland. Whilst I found that for some crimes the recidivism rate was very low and the rates are lower than in our countries, on average they are nowhere like what he said and you have printed. It always pays to check your facts before publication. You can find what I did here
http://www.bfs.admin.ch/bfs/portal/en/index/themen/19/04/03/01.html
Apart from this, I would like to say that I have always found your paper to be a good and an interesting read and I am pleased that it is now available on the web.
Sandi Beecher
Great Britain
Response: Thanks very much for the supportive words, and most of all for the correction on recidivism in Switzerland. That five percent number did seem miraculously low. Your research is something that we should have done ourselves. A good lesson both for the newspaper staff and the advisers.
Steve McNamara
Adviser
