Crime

You may or may not have heard about the "crime emergency" that has been in effect in DC all summer. I honestly don't know what that really means, other than stirring up the media and imposing a 10pm curfew on kids.

Last week I caught a few minutes of a press conference held by the DC police chief. Interestingly, he was claiming that the curfew has reduced both the number of teens who have been victims of crime and the number of teens who have been arrested during the summer. Let's see here - the curfew keeps the law-abiding kids off the streets and gives the law-breakers (who will still be outside) further incentive to avoid being in positions where they might come into contact with authorities. Interesting.

Even more interesting was that the chief stated that the police department is only part of the law enforcement process. I was thinking to myself, ok, he's going to refer to the need for effective methods of dealing with criminals once they are caught and parental responsibility for kids. ... Of course not. The chief went on to explain how the police and courts only came into play after the rest of society (including government in general, "community", welfare, etc...) failed to prevent those lawbreaking individuals from feeling they needed to break the law!

(blink, blink)

Yeah, the chief of police for Washington DC believes that all of society is part of the law enforcement process because, somehow, it is the responsibility of society when any freedom-despising, other-disregarding, law-breaking, individual makes a CHOICE to hold-up a convenience store or strip a pair of basketball shoes off a kid at gun-point. And we wonder why DC has the reputation it does....

Ok, I have to go do some school work. More on my classes and my students later.

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