reply to post by intrepid
It's nice to see members laying the blame right where it belongs, on the parents.
Au contraire. Although I am not a parent, as I like to remind those who decry my advice, I was after all, a child once. Which believe it or not, gives
me some insight into child rearing. I knew early in my life I wanted no children. As I try to put it succinctly, children are a hell of a lot of work
and dam little reward.
Actually, even in the really "old days" when parents could apply corporal punishment, parents had a lot more help then than they do today. Neighbors
did look out for children not their own. And strangers might offer admonishment to children engaged in boisterous conduct.
POINT? Parents can only do so much. They cannot be everywhere at once. Not all parents are created equal. Parents cannot always make the right
decision. From my point of view parenting is a very difficult job no one is born knowing, and we as a society need to find more ways to facilitate
child rearing in meaningful ways.
Now, trying young offenders as adults? If they are repeat offenders as was noted above, go right ahead. Detention centers are just places for
offenders to network. Kids actually come out worse than they went in.
I see at least 3 issues in this paragraph. We did not always have juvenile laws. Children caught in crimes were often dealt with ad hoc. In some
communities the outcome would be vastly different from the outcome for a similar offense in a different community. By the early 20th century, Freud
was beginning to gain acceptance for his description of the human psyche. What makes us tick. By the 1920s a movement was sweeping across America for
more rational - say humane - treatment of young offenders.
By the 1960s-1970s every state had juvenile laws. Usually the laws applied to all persons under the age of 18. The Federal system does not have a
juvenile law but it does treat criminal offenders differently if they are under 26 years 6 months of age when the offense was committed. The Youth
Offender Act.
One major gain of these laws was to seal the juvenile's record so that his adult potential would not be harmed dreadfully as a criminal record does
in the case of an adult. Another was to use social and psychological counseling more than incarceration. I am satisfied this approach has benefitted
more than it has harmed although problems with young people still exist. Too much time, not enough to do. Irresistible peer pressure. And boundless
curiosity. A willingness to try new things. It is after all, the explosion of knowledge young people are feeling.
Unfortunately we have more problems to solve that we have money to solve them with. I feel sure the "networking" rightfully complained of could be
reduced if we had larger facilities - less crowding - and more staffing. But then I'm sure a lot of what is wrong with our world would show better
outcomes if we did a better job of it. Which is to say, pay more.
Here in Jacksonville the evening news carried a story saying it cost $30,000-$120,000 per year per homeless person, counting all the court and
hospital time many of them incur or are part of. The idea is to furnish homeless people a home. That can be done for a cost between $15,000 and
$20,000 a year. If the numbers are right, it would be the cheapest AND BEST way out of a real dilemma.
The whole system is flawed, from how you can raise your kids to putting kids in jail for having some pot. They come out with friends that will take
them to the wonderful world of B&E's. From there escalation is inevitable.
In 1938 J Edgar Hoover of the FBI declared a War on Crime! Sort of an early neighborhood watch program. Sign up, put a sticker on your front door and
a metal shield on your car. Call the fuzz when you saw anything amiss. Then came the War on Poverty. Lend a helping hand to the disadvantaged.
Affirmative action. Section 8. Then we launched the war of all wars! The War on Drugs. President Nixon, 1969. So far, we are batting 0 out of 3 on
Wars. I don’t know how much longer our society will continue to indulge this extravagance of imposing one mans morality on another man, but surely
fighting all those wars and losing all of them all the time is getting to be so expensive we will be forced to re-look it.
Let’s hope the AGENT FOR CHANGE will be elected November 4 and there will be a new day aborning!