Crime and Education

This is another post 'concerning' Monday's State Street shooting.
"Man Gunned Down on State Street"

For the past few days, there has been a very lively discussion going on concerning the nature of crime, especially drug-related crime.

A person replied to my earlier response "A New Attitude is Needed" and I am now replying to his.

There was one thing he said that did make me feel pretty good. He completely disagreed with my views, but also said this this:

"I read your post and thought to myself for second.... This is how we should be thinking....but"

I leave out the rest of his response because I am not trying to put anyone down or make them look silly. I simply want to present my views. You can view the complete story and people's responses at the above link.

The last thing that she/he said was this: "I wish it was that easy, to be able to say better education and better paying jobs would fix the problem............. Although it's a good start, it's far from the answer!

Here is my reply:

No, it is not that easy. But, yes, I do believe that education is the 'Silver Bullet' for our problems. If we spend our time arresting, shooting and blowing up all of the 'bad guys' and 'thugs', more people will fill their boots in the future. Will we continue throwing people in the slammer ad infinitum?

Are these people born as 'thugs'? Are they born a problem and completely useless to our society? Education starts as soon as a person is born. The sole purpose of a new human is to learn. It is in our genes. Every person wants to learn when they come into the world. I wholeheartedly believe that the only thing that we can do with someone's desire to learn, other than encouraging it, is to crush it. Otherwise, the person will continue wanting to learn throughout their life.

I believe that when someone turns to a life of crime, especially one that risks them being shot, stabbed, arrested, etc., they have lost their desire to learn and they have given up trying to 'fit in' in their society. As long as society has existed, crime has existed. As long as crime has existed, prisons have existed as well. I have yet to see an example of a country eradicating crime by locking people up. It has to take more than removing criminals from society to make it work smoothly.

With this premise, we have two options. One is to work to better our education system to keep people from having to turn to the black market for employment. The other option, which should be used in conjunction with the first, is to continue to educate incarcerated individuals. At least while we have their attention in prison, we can teach them more about attaining gainful employment when they are released.

It does us no good to demonize law-breakers as 'thugs' and 'animals'. As long as we do not understand the reasons for turning to a life of crime, we will have a society full of individuals who turn to this life.

The first thing that we should be doing with education is to work to prevent our youth from seeing this life as something good. The purpose of education is to give each individual the tools with which to live a life of purpose and to respect themselves. As long as there is crime, we are not completely doing our jobs.

This is a very tough subject to get to the bottom of and I have only scratched the surface. But, we cannot continue to ignore the problems inherent in our society. We must face them, we must take those who have fallen to the side in America by the hand and lead them to a better life.

One last point. About them making thousands of dollars a day. As long as something is illegal, there will be a black market for it. When a black market exists, prices inflate and the sale of those items becomes more and more attractive to those who may have chosen legal employment in the past. I am not advocating the legalization of drugs, just that we look at some new solutions. There is also the option of more rehabilitation programs for drug users, thereby taking away the market for these drugs.

These are my feelings on these issues. Please do not take them as an attack on your intelligence or person. However, I would like for you all to pick apart this argument. Tell me if I'm wrong.

I am very happy that this discussion is going on, but sad that these things happen. But, if I can make even one person think twice about their hard-held views then I am doing my job.

With your help, I can do the same when on the City School Board.

Thank you.