Tony Alvarez, in a July 20 letter, asserted he did not need to read a study about poverty and gangs since he had personal experience dealing with both. To show how different this part of North Carolina is from Los Angeles, I will go back a few years.

In 1994 the League of Women Voters of Moore County began research that resulted in the January 1997 publication: "Children at Risk in Moore County, from Birth to Age 8." After that was published, I heard a county commissioner's comment at an official session that they needed to consider some of the issues raised by the LWVMC study.

A 60-page 2008 report, "The Impact of Poverty on Children Up to 18 years of Age in Moore County, N.C.," is now available to League members, with delivery to be made at our annual planning retreat this month.

In the July study we emphasized the impact of poverty on the 0 to 18 age group we studied, their families, and the broader society that includes the need for jail/prison beds, education, and other essentials

Also in the July 20 issue of The Pilot, a news article reported on a needs assessment for additional jail beds. The researcher estimated a cost of $29.3 million to $31.6 million, more than doubling the present number of beds. That estimate did not include staff.

I remember a quote from a volume published in 2007 by John Edwards, on poverty in N.C.: "The more we invest in children the less we will invest later in prisons."

I invite Alvarez to join the League and help us in our attempt to educate the public about some of the poverty-related issues in Moore County.

John Reagan, Southern Pines