Baltimorei

[iris lilies]

It really must be sad to have such a pessimistic outlook on the world. And to live in such a dangerous neighborhood. Maybe you need to move.

Pessimistic? More like realistic. Thanks for your concern, but I don't see why I should let hoodlums force me out. I also don't see why I have to spend much of my own life energy figuring out how to fix them if it's not something that interests me.

I do live in a crime ridden area, as any view of comparative crime stats would show, and I mention it only to establish my creds as having a stake in how criminals are treated.

Feel free to look up the Harlem Children's Zone's concepts and what successes they've had. Or don't and continue to bitch and moan about how black people are just horrible down to the core of their being and will never change. To alter another tired phrase, we all can choose to be as hopeless as we want to be.

When I wrote that post yesterday I actually, believe it or not, tended to agree with you that once someone was in the criminal justice system getting them out of it for any length of time was highly unlikely. Then on the plane last night I listened to a recent This American Life episode where they did a story about a program in Richmond CA to try and reduce recidivism. The city looked at the stats and found that, unlike your perception that there are lots and lots of really bad guys out there (and probably theirs as well) only 17 people, in a city of just over 100,000, were responsible for almost all of the shooting crimes in the city. They created a program to target just those guys, the worst of the worst, and now years and several groups of guys later, 80% of the people who went through the program haven't been arrested again. I'd encourage you to go find and listen to the podcast, but again, I realize you may not want to burst your pessimistic bubble.

I never made any statement about how many criminals there are and obviously l didn't say "black people are just horrible down to the core of their being and will never change." Whoah, that's a lot of junk you are attributing to me. Yep, I don't think that Nanny G throwing money at social problems always, or even most of the time, brings human services up to optimum levels. I have known 2 kids who came out of jail and who stayed on the straight and narrow, but they had families with means who were able to focus them on job/living clean and provided support for same.

One single bad actor can cause troublesome events for a lot of people over a long time, and that's why locking them up is important. It's relief for me and people in my neighborhood.

I guarantee that if you lived and hung out in the places I do, you'd be relieved and happy when cops catch these shooters and killers and put them away. I'm sure you'd also continue to be interested in finding a better solution as you are now. There are many people who live here who lament the current "system" while also supporting police in catching criminals. So be it, type on the internet all you like about Ira Glass expounding on a solution. I will eventually hear this TAL show since I hear most all of them. But I want to grow lilies and iris and lead a life uninterrupted by criminals. When you and Ira solve it all, let me know.

[CathyA]

I am in no way removing the police's responsibilities in these cases, but can you imagine, day in and day out, dealing with people who are always committing crimes/acting just plain stupid/being disrespectful/hating you just because you're wearing a uniform/just because you're white? I imagine some of these incidents present the last straw to these police.

[CathyA]

Alan.....it sure makes you wonder who the sacrificial lambs will be......to keep the "peace"....

[gimmethesimplelife]

I am in no way removing the police's responsibilities in these cases, but can you imagine, day in and day out, dealing with people who are always committing crimes/acting just plain stupid/being disrespectful/hating you just because you're wearing a uniform/just because you're white? I imagine some of these incidents present the last straw to these police.

You know, Cathy, I read your post here and I have been doing some thinking and I can see your point. I live in an area where the police and the neighborhood are not sympatico to put in nicely. Day in day out we are fed up with the police and the danger they represent - but I'll be honest, I've never put the shoe on the other foot on this one. Why shouldn't they be fed up day in and day out being feared and hated, having people refuse to cooperate - even though I personally believe these are valid behaviors - why wouldn't they get fed up with it all? Especially if they are in it for the right reasons. You have really made me think here and I Thank You for that. Rob

[creaker]

I am in no way removing the police's responsibilities in these cases, but can you imagine, day in and day out, dealing with people who are always committing crimes/acting just plain stupid/being disrespectful/hating you just because you're wearing a uniform/just because you're white? I imagine some of these incidents present the last straw to these police.

That's actually the same justification the rioters could use.

[jp1]

To be clear, when someone commits a crime I think they should be in jail. The point I'm trying to make in my posts is that I think there's a better solution to crime than spending $40,000 per year, or whatever the amount is, locking people up in a for profit prison off and on for the rest of their life. Far better to invest that money up front when they are young children and teach them the tools to succeed instead of waiting for them to fail and then spending the money.

[jp1]

Pessimistic? More like realistic. Thanks for your concern, but I don't see why I should let hoodlums force me out. I also don't see why I have to spend much of my own life energy figuring out how to fix them if it's not something that interests me.

I do live in a crime ridden area, as any view of comparative crime stats would show, and I mention it only to establish my creds as having a stake in how criminals are treated.


I never made any statement about how many criminals there are and obviously l didn't say "black people are just horrible down to the core of their being and will never change." Whoah, that's a lot of junk you are attributing to me. Yep, I don't think that Nanny G throwing money at social problems always, or even most of the time, brings human services up to optimum levels. I have known 2 kids who came out of jail and who stayed on the straight and narrow, but they had families with means who were able to focus them on job/living clean and provided support for same.

One single bad actor can cause troublesome events for a lot of people over a long time, and that's why locking them up is important. It's relief for me and people in my neighborhood.

I guarantee that if you lived and hung out in the places I do, you'd be relieved and happy when cops catch these shooters and killers and put them away. I'm sure you'd also continue to be interested in finding a better solution as you are now. There are many people who live here who lament the current "system" while also supporting police in catching criminals. So be it, type on the internet all you like about Ira Glass expounding on a solution. I will eventually hear this TAL show since I hear most all of them. But I want to grow lilies and iris and lead a life uninterrupted by criminals. When you and Ira solve it all, let me know.

Iris, my apologies, I was intending to respond to CathyA and you separately and instead responded only to you. My comments were intended to be a response to her thoughts on DNA.

[Yossarian]

Far better to invest that money up front when they are young children and teach them the tools to succeed instead of waiting for them to fail and then spending the money.

Money may be a necessary ingredient but it is not sufficient. This is slightly off your topic but I think intimately related.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/01/op...erty.html?_r=0


Lately it seems as though every few months there’s another urban riot and the nation turns its attention to urban poverty. And in the midst of every storm, there are people crying out that we should finally get serious about this issue. This time it was Jon Stewart who spoke for many when he said: “And you just wonder sometimes if we’re spending a trillion dollars to rebuild Afghanistan’s schools, like, we can’t build a little taste down Baltimore way. Like is that what’s really going on?”

The audience applauded loudly, and it’s a nice sentiment, but it’s not really relevant.

The problem is not lack of attention, and it’s not mainly lack of money. Since 1980 federal antipoverty spending has exploded. As Robert Samuelson of The Washington Post has pointed out, in 2013 the federal government spent nearly $14,000 per poor person. If you simply took that money and handed it to the poor, a family of four would have a household income roughly twice the poverty rate.

Yet over the last 30 years the poverty rate has scarcely changed.

...

Saying we should just spend more doesn’t really cut it. What’s needed is a phase shift in how we think about poverty. Renewal efforts in Sandtown-Winchester prioritized bricks and mortar. But the real barriers to mobility are matters of social psychology, the quality of relationships in a home and a neighborhood that either encourage or discourage responsibility, future-oriented thinking, and practical ambition.

...

In a fantastic interview that David Simon of “The Wire” gave to Bill Keller for The Marshall Project, he describes that, even in poorest Baltimore, there once were informal rules of behavior governing how cops interacted with citizens — when they’d drag them in and when they wouldn’t, what curse words you could say to a cop and what you couldn’t. But then the code dissolved. The informal guardrails of life were gone, and all was arbitrary harshness.

That’s happened across many social spheres — in schools, families and among neighbors. Individuals are left without the norms that middle-class people take for granted. It is phenomenally hard for young people in such circumstances to guide themselves.

Yes, jobs are necessary, but if you live in a neighborhood, as Gray did, where half the high school students don’t bother to show up for school on a given day, then the problems go deeper.

The world is waiting for a thinker who can describe poverty through the lens of social psychology. Until the invisible bonds of relationships are repaired, life for too many will be nasty, brutish, solitary and short.

[jp1]

I never said just give people money.

[catherine]

Yes, you're right--we're all in it together, which is why we need to figure out how we all can drink out of Gregg's watering hole without killing each other.

You could move, if you're not comfortable with the demographics of your city. Move to Vermont. My DS was dating a black girl and a couple of redneck Vermonters pretty much drove her out of a bar like swatting a fly. I love VT and would live there in a minute, but it's astounding to me, a NJ resident with white minority status, that such homogeneity still exists, and such intolerance still exists. (well, I do believe it--I just don't experience it in my own day-to-day life).

Wow, I'm replying to my own comment because here is a study that completely contradicts what I just said: This just popped up in my email. It says that New Jersey is very racist… and it also says that VT is not.