Political Crossfire Forums

[TNBiologist]

britboy wrote:
It was me saying pro-active, and you won't understand my answer so will rip it apart but here goes anyway.

The best solution I believe is to try and persuade young Alex, aged 13 and annoyed with the world, not to set out on a life of crime in the first place. To pro-actively stop him is better for all parties than to re-actively lock him up.

This won't always be possible. But for those cases when it is, not only do you end up with no victims of 'Alex', but also no need to spend money keeping him locked in prison, investigating his crimes etc.

So, we know approximately the kind of kids that will probably be considering crime. Inner cities. Gang territory. Broken homes etc.

I would spend your hard earned taxes (yep, your money) on providing these kids with LOADS of things they can optionally do. Sports clubs. Free cinema trips. Hiking trips. Free 'Arts and sciences classes'. I would give employers tax discounts if they employ particularly vulnerable young folk. I would increase the money going into anti-drug initiatives. I would spend money on Alex when he is at the 'crime or no crime' crossroads .. hopefully not 3 years later in detectives and prison wardens time.

Basically young Alex doesn't even realise this, but society would put in large resources to pro-actively give him as much incentive as possible to follow the straight and narrow.

Now this will make absolutely zero difference to some kids -- they will end up mugging people anyway. And also it's hard to quantify. Headlines will start appearing 'government spends $20,000 on Billy over 5 years, and he still kills some old lady'. But I believe a lot of kids will not make that final jump into crime if society isn't treating them like useless wastes of time in the first place (even if they are!!). And a lot of early precursors (stealing car stereos, bit of vandalism etc) are, simply, because the kid is bored out of his head, he absolutely has no money, he thinks he has no way of getting money, his self-worth is at rock bottom and he thinks society doesn't give a stuff about him (does it? really?), so why should he care about society.

Now, most people do not subscribe to my views. They think 'I earn't my money, no way some little runt should be given it in the form of a new sports club'. Its hard for these people to see the big picture. Today's bored petty criminals on the streets are tomorrows rapers and home intruders. For goodness sake, let's give them both the carrot and the stick. Penalties if they start down the wrong road, but not just a big 'hahaha you're life is **** and society doesn't give a cr*p' if they are having a hard time staying on the straight and narrow. Reward as well as punishment when they are at those critical teenage years.

Hope that made sense. I expect a number of responses saying 'I never got a free youth club and sport equipment yet I came out OK'. and 'I earn't my taxes tough cr*p to the kid trying to be lawful'. But these are the same people who will be upset when Alex aged 24 breaks into their house, trashes it and steals $7000 worth of stuff. It's a long term solution, the worst bit being it is extremely hard to quantify how well it is working as in needs to be in place for 10/15 years before you can expect crime rate drops.

What do you think?


(apologies a little off topic -- apart from this will take gun-wielding criminals off your streets)

We (the US) already have many of the programs you mentioned in place. There are countless afterschool/innercity/youth programs that take particularly vunerable kids and turn them away from crime. There are midnight basketball, boys and girls clubs, innercity sports, afterschool educational programs but these don't compare to the money the youth can make by selling drugs or robbing people. These programs aren't viewed as "cool" compared to hanging out with friends and getting in trouble. In order to save the the furture generateions of kids from following this path we need to make these criminal activities as unappealing as posiable while at the time offering them another option that does not involve crime. The problem we have in thw US is the people making the decisions are either/or. They are for one meathod but not the other and it will take a combination of both deterrents (jail, community service) and other options (youth sports, education, jobs).

[mathurin]

britboy wrote: mathurin wrote: Kamel wrote: Well, it's nice to see some suggestions on combating this dilema, but I don't feel penalties will work though. Criminals don't give a sh*t about the law, hence the title 'criminal'. An amnesty period won't do anything either, they'll just veiw it as a set-up and ignore it. It's like putting a picture of a cat on a mouse-trap

criminals do respond to penalties
and the amnesty is not for the criminals, but to prevent normally law abiding people who bought a gun they are unsure of from being jailed

but i am open to suggestions

when somebody said, proactive, do elaborate

It was me saying pro-active, and you won't understand my answer so will rip it apart but here goes anyway.

The best solution I believe is to try and persuade young Alex, aged 13 and annoyed with the world, not to set out on a life of crime in the first place. To pro-actively stop him is better for all parties than to re-actively lock him up.

This won't always be possible. But for those cases when it is, not only do you end up with no victims of 'Alex', but also no need to spend money keeping him locked in prison, investigating his crimes etc.

So, we know approximately the kind of kids that will probably be considering crime. Inner cities. Gang territory. Broken homes etc.

I would spend your hard earned taxes (yep, your money) on providing these kids with LOADS of things they can optionally do. Sports clubs. Free cinema trips. Hiking trips. Free 'Arts and sciences classes'. I would give employers tax discounts if they employ particularly vulnerable young folk. I would increase the money going into anti-drug initiatives. I would spend money on Alex when he is at the 'crime or no crime' crossroads .. hopefully not 3 years later in detectives and prison wardens time.

Basically young Alex doesn't even realise this, but society would put in large resources to pro-actively give him as much incentive as possible to follow the straight and narrow.

Now this will make absolutely zero difference to some kids -- they will end up mugging people anyway. And also it's hard to quantify. Headlines will start appearing 'government spends $20,000 on Billy over 5 years, and he still kills some old lady'. But I believe a lot of kids will not make that final jump into crime if society isn't treating them like useless wastes of time in the first place (even if they are!!). And a lot of early precursors (stealing car stereos, bit of vandalism etc) are, simply, because the kid is bored out of his head, he absolutely has no money, he thinks he has no way of getting money, his self-worth is at rock bottom and he thinks society doesn't give a stuff about him (does it? really?), so why should he care about society.

Now, most people do not subscribe to my views. They think 'I earn't my money, no way some little runt should be given it in the form of a new sports club'. Its hard for these people to see the big picture. Today's bored petty criminals on the streets are tomorrows rapers and home intruders. For goodness sake, let's give them both the carrot and the stick. Penalties if they start down the wrong road, but not just a big 'hahaha you're life is **** and society doesn't give a cr*p' if they are having a hard time staying on the straight and narrow. Reward as well as punishment when they are at those critical teenage years.

Hope that made sense. I expect a number of responses saying 'I never got a free youth club and sport equipment yet I came out OK'. and 'I earn't my taxes tough cr*p to the kid trying to be lawful'. But these are the same people who will be upset when Alex aged 24 breaks into their house, trashes it and steals $7000 worth of stuff. It's a long term solution, the worst bit being it is extremely hard to quantify how well it is working as in needs to be in place for 10/15 years before you can expect crime rate drops.

What do you think?


(apologies a little off topic -- apart from this will take gun-wielding criminals off your streets)

i like it, such things are a great way to reduce crime, but we need to make sure we aim it carefully and keep it well watched

for instance, in the past, sports were an incentive to be a good student/citizen, now, well, the kid is good at football, so we will give him good grades and ignore the drugs he does
not the purpose and a bad idea, this happened in my school

and i think you underestimate your own plan, i would bet less than 5 years before results were shown, if it is introduced properly

we have a problem in america with our school system, being egalitarian we designed it to be pre-college, when a large portion of the students will not go to college, and so they come out of high school with no marketable skills
its a problem

like TNG said, we have many programs, i just dont feel they are properly targeted