Responsibility For All

Yes, I agree with you. The prison situation doesn’t work. We need to strip it down and start over with a new model.

I’ve been doing prison ministry twice a month since 1981. The current prison system doesn’t work. It is so overcrowded that there is no budget for rehabilitation. Convicts are required to take classes before they are paroled, but the classes have long wait lists. We responded to crack babies by assigning high sentences to crack types of cocaine, but not the powered substance. Instead of putting people into treatment we put them in prison. This disproportionately impacted Black America. Now their children are being raised without fathers to support them, protect them and teach them right and wrong. The children’s’ mothers on physically, emotionally and financially exhausted, and I’ve seen them threaten their obstreperous little boys with “I’m going to ask if they have a cell for you.” We slap juvenile delinquents on the wrist, while they are still young and stupid and full of testosterone that motivates them to do dangerous acts instead of punishing. We wait until they are older, and less likely to commit violent crimes. Sometimes when they get three convictions, we send them to prison for life. Answers include drug programs, counseling, and reasonable and equitable sentences for criminal acts, faith based programs such as Prison Fellowships Interchange Freedom Program that reduced recidivism from 65% to less than 20%, job programs for ex-cons, and mentors to help them when they get out.

This seems more common that people think. Same thing happened to a friend of mine at a Walmart Parking Lot..this was repeat offender (with abduction & rape as part of his rap sheet)..guy is out on bail now..the system is broken..it would be nice to just ship such criminals to a remote land somewhere & be done with them since these sort of repeat offenders have no remorse, no genuine feelings & truly do not belong in mainstrean society..

I AGREE VERY MUCH WITH YOUR COMMENTS ON RESPONSABILITY, I THINK THAT AS A MEMBER OF SOCIETY WE ARE ALL RESPONSABLE FOR WHAT IS WRONG IN IT, IF WE ARE NOT A PART OF THE SOLUTION WE ARE A PART OF THE PROBLEM, WE HAVE BECOME SELFISH AND WANT TO IGNORE THE REALITY OF OUR WORLD, WE NEED TO COLABORATE IN ONE WAY OR ANOTHER IN CHAGING THIS AND LETTING OUR OPINION BE HEARD BY OUR ELECTED POLITICIANS IS ONE OF THEM, PEOPLE SHOULD BE SEND TO REHAB AND TO A COUNSELING AND SKILLS PROGRAM BEFORE GOING TO JAIL FOR A NON VIOLENT CRIME AND EVEN WITH A VIOLENT CRIME BESIDES ALL OF THESE A ANGER MANAGEMENT CONTROL PROGRAM SHOULD BE MANDATORY, ALL OF THESE TO LAW OFFEDERS AND THEIR FAMILIES IS PREVENTIVE MEDICINE, AND WE HELP TO STOP THE CICLE AND GIVE DIGNITY TO OUR SOCIAL, CULTURAL AND ECONOMICAL, ETC., LESS FORTUNATE MEMBERS OF SOCIETY, ALL MEMBERS OF SOCIETY AND GOVERNMENT HAVE TO WORK TOGETHER TO PREVENT THE COMPLETE CHAOS IN OUR SOCIETY THAT AS OF NOW SEEMS INMINENT IN OUR CLOSE FUTURE.

I am very sorry for the sexual assault suffered by your daughter, someone tried to forced himself upon me when I was younger, I felt ignored as a human being, very depressed but a friend told me something that completely change my reaction he said you where at the wrong moment at the wrong place, it was not personal, if your neighbor had been there that would had happened to her, and with those words, I let go of it and could see it from the outside perspective. Best to your daughter.

Our specie has been forming and destroying communities for over 15,000 years. We have traveled the globe, taking what we needed and what we would without much regard for the long-term consequences of doing so. We have loved and hated and experienced everything in between. We have gained incredible amounts of knowledge and put it to use in creating tools and goods. We have also witnessed the spread of another kind of intellect, the kind of slimy brilliance which pock-marks every era and discloses the malevolent behaviors of history’s monsters, both those in government and those beyond its reach.
Throughout these millennia, others, people of hope, heart, and wisdom have tried to share another view of life, one in which the human condition is enhanced and advanced by mutual responsibility and “civilized” interactions. “It takes a village” meets “be the change” in fact.
I heard once, when I was very young, of a tribe that had gradually abandoned all its traditional conventions with regard to behavior, child rearing, marital rules and roles, community responsibility, and law. Calling on these vague memories, I recall that the male-female partnerships eroded first, until couples stopped living together, huts stopped being built to house a family, neither partner felt obliged to aid or support or provide for the other, and finally, women stopped suckling their offspring, leaving them to fend, literally, for themselves by the age of 18 months. Within two or three generations, the tribe ceased to exist.
America is a land of proud individualism. The strength, courage, and tenacity of very special humans built this country around a single notion, that the individual is capable of anything. And, it’s true… but it is not everything. Sir Edmund Hilary did indeed reach Mount Everest’s summit, with Tenzing Norgay at his back. Christopher Columbus “discovered” America, for good or ill depending on your ancestry, but his fleet of ships was crowded with people of every conceivable trade, folks who made the outward and return voyage possible. Lance Armstrong, winner of seven Tours de France, was always a part of a team that drafted, lead, and ultimately paved the way to his success. Our historic tradition of individualism largely ignores the human buttresses that have upheld most great endeavors and so we often act as though those influences and actors didn’t exist.
I have lived in the Middle East, North Africa, Washington, Oregon, Arkansas, Ohio, and California. In every place, I found a full spectrum of people from admirable to disreputable, and in no place had anyone found the secret to the perfect life or society. But, in terms of crime, three of these locations in particular were fortunate in that the volume and cost of crime was very low: Kuwait, Morocco, and Arkansas. I am going to offer one, completely unsubstantiated surmise as to why crime is so low in tiny, wealthy Kuwait, relatively poor and still-developing Morocco, and rural Arkansas.
In each place, strong communities monitored the behavior of its citizens and any outsiders who came to the area. Kuwait, being a small nation with a stable population consists of very large extended family groups. Because few people move out of Kuwait, aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents, siblings, and parents all dwell in a country the size of Maryland. Naturally, there is crime in Kuwait. No one there would claim otherwise, but with the large numbers of people in a family community, nefarious activities don’t remain secret for long.
In Arkansas, where the first question a newcomer is asked is, “Have you found a church-home yet?”, dominant religious systems, arising from churches the size of the Pentagon, with congregational tentacles long enough to reach into every Christian home, have a kind of “big brother” impact on social behavior and seem to quash the kind of “let’s do it” group think that leads to a first, underage arrest.
In Morocco, people are everywhere. They are outside in the dusty lanes, on the sidewalks, and walking along the avenues. Moroccans leave their homes on foot and walk to friends, family, the shops, the government offices, the vegetable market, and the cinema. In a typical day, a Moroccan will pass 400 other souls, encounter 20 friends and acquaintances, which action demands a three to ten minute exchange of greetings and assurances that all is well with the speaker and all is well with the family, and then pass extended time with 5 good friends or family members. If a child living on Olive Street misbehaves on Grape Avenue, he or she may well be chastised and have their fanny swatted by a family friend from another neighborhood altogether. The rule in all these places is that no one dare run afoul of the local rules and regs, even if mom or dad isn’t there to witness the crime. Anyone in the community, family, or church can call a child to account and demand obedience.
Now, “it’s none of your business” is the norm, and I can understand that sort of attitude, even if I don’t agree. I’ve tried mentioning to a parent I searched out at a mall store that a son had broken a toy in the children’s section, only to receive the response “Well, it’s really none of your business, is it?” As a high school teacher, I’ve called parents whose student has been caught cheating on a test and been told, “He said he didn’t do it, and I believe him.”
At this stage of our societal development, Americans don’t really want “a village” or appreciate those who are willing to “be the change.” We may declare such a desire for the record and before elections, but we negate it with our actions in daily life. As a result of our rugged “don’t mess with me”, “stay out of my business” individualism, we have hundreds of thousands of men and women who felt so little loyality or concern about their neighbors that they chose to make them victims. To prevent a widening criminal pandemic and the need for hundreds more prisons, we have to be willing to: take a chance on one another, stick our necks out, court criticism for the greater good, and “be the change.”

Welcome to today and the convergence of the deep lack of social and moral responsibility in what was formerly the good old U.S.A. Have any of you seen those global warming videos lately with big chunks of the ice packs and glaciers just crashing into the sea? Well, that reminds me of what I see ahead of us as a country (beginning to just crumble in bigger and bigger pieces)unless we wake up and begin to take positive action and responsibility. The prison symptom is just the tip of the iceberg, no pun intended. All areas of our society and institutions are tired and failing and the people supposedly in charge are fiddling with business as usual while the Empire is burning. In my lifetime of over six decades I have never seen anything like now in the U.S (and I am a major optimist), and I have never been more ashamed of the low life supposedly running the country and acting in our best interest. They are crooks, liars and convicted felons who act like they are above us all and entitled to benefits (still collecting federal pensions) far above what most of us could wish for.

What will it take to turn this downward and dangerous slide around? It will take each of us regardless of political affiliation to say enough is enough, we are mad as hell and not going to take it any more. We must demand, not ask, that our representatives shape up or ship out. We must demand action, not debate and endless hearings. We must demand firing or prosecution of those responsible for fraud,misappropriation, waste and abuse of taxpayer money. And most of all we must demand the truth and face the truth as our primary guiding principle. We are responsible for our lives and we create our lives and never must we allow that privilege to be taken away from us by anyone supposedly acting in our best interest. Now is the time to take back what is and always has been ours . . our lives and our country.

I thought you should know that this morning I read on the national news that showcased a murder of 3 teenagers, and one wounded,.. from an area I grew up in. Nothing like this has ever happened in the community. It’s a rural area. Of course the rumor mills are flying. No one understands motives. Rumors are he just came back fro Iraq. If he did…you have to wonder the impact on a soldier, that would return home, to kill a group of teenagers. There were 9, and he shot 4 of them. One as close as 7-10 feet away. We will never understand the reasons,..but nothing will “fix” the problem. Yes… your story about the darkness I’m sure is being felt in Upper Michigan tonite

America is a insane asylum that wants to point fingers at everyone but themselves, more folks in prison than in China and Russia combined yet you folk talk about freedom and justice yet you fail to question the propaganda you spread about crime and your own country

We must create a culture of forgiveness and love. This is the message of the great thinkers throughout the ages. Foregiveness changes all dynamics. It is the ultimate fix.

We are in a country measured by short-term thinking without regard to the long-term cost. Our country is run by those who only desire to shape society by force rather than by education. We still have not learned that forcing good behavior only maintains ignorance and creates resentment, disrespect, and rebellion- the manifestation of the law that you receive what you put out.

I’m not here to say that no one should be imprisoned. Yes, there are some people who are just too messed up, and may have to live out their lives in a prison or asylum. But many people are simply uneducated and injured souls who needed help out of their unfortunate upbringing and/or abuse. Count your blessings if you had a better childhood than theirs!

Creating a society of extreme wealth among the few, and poverty among the many will take a society down. This is true whether you’re talking financially, or in terms of education and culture. Rather than invest in more prisons and “no child left behind” style education, we need to invest in education and social programs that will manifest a healthy and functional society- to reap better for what we will have sown.