If you want to see my already-red hair explode into flames of temper, set up an expensive government program that is supposed to help children without including a mechanism to make sure it's working.
This enrages me. How about you? And it looks like Los Angeles has done exactly that. As Deborah says in "Everybody Loves Raymond": Idiots. A story in Monday's Los Angeles Times describes anti-gang prevention programs that dumped hundreds of millions of tax dollars into programs and the officials have no idea if they are working. I'm not heavy into mandates, but this is one initiative I would go door-to-door to promote. In every government program should be a mechanism to measure effectiveness and oversight.
The Times story says that millions were spent, yet the officials have no idea if they are helping anything. It's possible that you could count the kids helped by these programs on one hand! From the Times:
City officials received an evaluation of L.A. Bridges' intervention programs two years later, which found that one city contractor had taken two teens out of gangs. Meanwhile, gang-prevention contracts were so lax that workers could meet the city's requirements by taking certain children to a baseball game and a picnic in a 12-month period . . .
This should be a lesson for Fresno, which gets a warm feeling everytime the cops round up a group of gang members. That's pretty easy to measure. Gang member in jail. Score one for society. Yes and no. Even the police chief warns that we cannot arrest our way out of the gang problem. The most important part of the whole program is prevention -- unless we want to keep losing our young people and then sign over our paychecks every week to the prison guards union to essentially be their parents throughout their adult lives. The way we are building prisons in this state, that is not such a far-fetched idea. That said, how much do we know in Fresno about the effectiveness of our own prevention programs?
We need a public review at least once a month or more often to see exactly what the police are doing to young people. It is ridiculous to believe arresting a young person and putting them in jail solves the gang problem. Why are young people drawn to gangs in the first place? They need to know someone cares about them. They need to have classes to teach them a trade. They (as well as every other student) needs No Child Left Behind left behind! The last thing they need in the world is prison!
They needed to be treated as worthy young people and they will begin to behave as worthy.
More liberal social experimentation failing the taxpayers while draining our resources.While we wring our hands over the causes bad guys/girls still need to pay the price for their bad behavior.Dr.Gail likes to hang with the teens maybe she and V.Diane could focus on some of these troubled kids.Put some of them to work at the Bee or is this just more pontification with no intent of personal action(the liberal M.O.)If you are sooo concerned ... do something.
I agree that we need more accountability. I strongly disagree with Brian's suggestion that we just wait for kids to go bad and lock them up. What a waste of lives and resources!
We will be a state of prisons if there isn't some accountability for the crimes like vandalism, stealing, and other less serious crimes instead of a slap on the wrist. They need to pay the price as do their parents for their lack of supervision. Give the kids and parents scrub and paint brushes and let them clean up graffiti on the weekends and pay for the paint as well that might make them keep tabs on their kids a bit more. Put an ordinance into place that makes it illegal to wear gang clothing and baggy pants. I am sick of seeing their dambn underwear.
"Abatement" needs two fronts if it is to succeed. On one front, arrest the hardened gang members and don't let them back on the street. When that influence is out of the picture, the second front would be the un-brainwashing of kids. Use the programs that already exist and like Brian says, let the liberal do-gooders put their money where their mouth is: volunteer to work in the neighborhoods where these kids need strong guidance to overcome the deficits they have in morals, conscience, and obedience to society's laws.