I'm Not Interested in Getting Criminals Off the Street

It's an election year and every year seemingly every elected official and those politicking to become one espouse their desire to get criminals off the street.  'Tougher crime measures', they say; 'lock up those who are victimizing "our" neighborhoods and throw away the key', they shout; "get the thugs off the street", we hear.  Everyone, seems to nod or shout in agreement or simply concur by default with silence. These include, ironically, those involved in illegal activity - probably from fear of drawing attention to themselves - but silence nonetheless.  I'm not one of those people with my pitchfork and torch running with the mob of people chasing all of the criminals and "thugs" into the jail cells so we can "throw away the key". 

Question, have you ever heard it said that as "fast as we get one guy off the street he is replaced by another"?  So, with that sentiment, how long are we going to run through the streets with our pitch forks?  How many more civil rights are we going to give up in order to apprehend the bad guys so we can feel safe?  Do we really feel safe?  I mean when you drive through a road block does that make you feel safer?  Do those cameras at the traffic lights make you feel safer?  Perhaps some of those resources would have been better served patrolling the locker rooms at Penn State.  Low blow? Maybe. But it seems that most of the resources ARE being spent on certain kinds of crimes in certain kinds of areas to catch certain kinds of criminals.  Maybe you do feel safer when they lock up another drug dealer.  Those pesky drug dealers!  I mean they are as persistent as telemarketers aren't they?  They're everywhere - breaking into our homes, stealing our cars.  Worst of all, shoving drugs involuntarily into our bodies...or is that the FDA?

Billions of dollars are spent each year to fight crime.  Tens of billions (estimated at 23 billion in 2011) to fight the "war on drugs" alone.  But with all of those billions they still say "as fast as we get one guy off the street he is replaced by another".  So, If criminals are virtually being cloned (tongue in cheek) then perhaps we need to take a different approach toward crime.  I'm sure in all of those billions upon billions that have been spent to fight crime a million or so was set aside to study the causes of certain crimes.  Maybe we could divert some of that money from "crime prevention" to criminal prevention.  Let's list those factors that lead to the choice to involve one's self in crime.  There are many but I'll list a few in no particular order.

• Poverty
• Lack of meaningful opportunity for advancement
• Low self esteem due to the above mentioned
• Lack of tangible role models
• Inadequate or uninvolved parents
• Police harassment
• Yes, police harassment
• The culturalization of crime

All of of these are interconnected and often interdependent.  How much of that 23 billion could effectively fight the above?  


Street crime is the crime that most people seem to be afraid of but I ask you, was President Obama a criminal when he was smoking weed and snorting cocaine?  Where did he get it?  Was Bill Clinton a criminal when he didn't inhale?  Where did he get the weed?  Oh! Duh? From one of those pesky telemarketers.  George W. Bush, was he a criminal when he was driving drunk?   Were you and I when we...?  Besides not getting caught what's the difference in our "criminal" activity from those who are locked up for comparable offenses?  What enabled our lives to become better?  Two words, opportunity and influence.  With viable opportunities and positive influences will there still be some crime?  Yes,  Bernie Madoff proved that.  But the prisons are not built for the Madoff's of the world and the billions spent each year are not meant to catch him or his colleagues.  Bush, Obama, and Clinton, more than likely were just misguided youths (like most) experimenting in life but were nurtured, pointed and pushed in the right direction.  Let's face it, most street crime has some connection to youth and drugs, be it trafficking or abuse.  Those who abuse drugs have a health problem, just like Rush Limbaugh and Robert Downy Jr. did, that needs to be addressed.  Everyone seems to hate the drug dealer except, of course, the prison system that makes money off of them, but that's another blog.  The point is if drug dealing is the poster child for crime in America then lets take away the customers.  This is why I'm not interested in getting criminals off of the street...I'm more interested in getting crime out of the criminal, or better yet crime away from its hosts.  I mean with adequate housing; parental education and assistance; drug abuse education; cultural education and sensitivity training for police officers; mentorship programs; and incentives for business and community involvement in local schools, to name a few, a significant majority of neighborhoods all over the country could be like those people you see on the news when some tragic crime happens in their neighborhood.  You know the ones, they're on the news crying and through the tears, trembling voice and choked up words they say,  "this kind of thing doesn't happen around here."  Hmm, crime is actually an anomaly somewhere?  Then perhaps it can be an anomaly everywhere.  Besides, what would make you feel safer, getting criminals off the street or having no criminals at all?