Attorney General Janet Reno
Department of Justice  
Constitution Avenue
Washington, DC  20530			     July 8, 1999

Dear Attorney General Reno:

For the past few years I've been making sculptures based on 
statistical data. Though apparently "abstract" in form, they 
are actually quite representative of certain social conditions 
in the U.S. over periods of time. As such they are all called 
"Historical Abstracts."

I have addressed such topics as married and unmarried 
births, the changing ratio of social versus defense spending, 
etc. I could not, of course, leave out crime, especially as the 
popular perception that crime rates are rising is contrary 
to the facts. I chose to contrast the U.S. homicide rate with 
the incarceration rate over 70 years, from 1926 to 1996. 
I include here - for your amusement or horror, as the case 
may be - photographs of the resulting sculpture.

All aspects of the sculpture were arrived at deliberately. 
Each laminated layer represents one year with the vertical 
dimension deriving from the number of prisoners in federal, 
state and local penal institutions and the horizontal dimension 
from the homicide rate. The form of the piece reflects, I think, 
the high testosterone level implied by the topic, and the color 
(the sculpture is made of mahogany) approximates the hue of 
the racial mix in those institutions.

I thought you and/or your staff might find this interesting.

Sincerely,