I would like to say that yes, reaching out to know God will help a
lot of these individuals. But, I will also say that I do not feel
that reaching out to a church will necessarily solve these types of
problems. The difference is that often Churches are what drive
individuals to some of this. Or families who belong to churches and
force their children to believe "their way."
I think that you can raise children to love God, have respect for
their fellow man and to live a good life under those premises
without the church.
I'm sorry but I have seen too many "churches" show bigotry,
predjuidice, and almost all the horrible sins (including
"murder" in the name of God) because of their need to be the "only
chosen."
I do believe that it is the selfish parents who are losing their
children to the street. Mostly, because they are too selfish in
their pursuit of something better to acknowledge or take the time
with their kids that is needed. But it is also the too harsh, who
expect too much who drive their kids to "rebel." There are so many
facets of this picture that the best way to deal with it, is not to
blame. In the sense that, this is what an outreach program would be
for. "Delinquents" don't come from any "certain kind" of household.
They come from all different backgrounds, some have two parents, some
have one, some are poor, some are rich, some have strong religious
backgrounds, some don't.
That is why it is so important to have a place with answers for them.
A lot of lies make their rounds to our kids every day. I for one
resent many of those lies being told to them. They are told by many
in the community from civic leaders to religious leaders (because
everyone wants them to believe in "their way of life" as the best).
With outreach - they would have a legal advocate to talk with about
their legal issues, a reality-based therapist to talk about problems
and solutions to these problems (just their's personally), the option
of learning self-defense to protect themselves from people taking out
their frustrations on them (physical abuse), and a safe place. Just
like the Domestic Violence safe place. A place where when things are
looking bad and dangerous at home they can legally leave and find a
safe haven for the night without being accused of being a runaway.
I am trying not to accuse or anything else as to how we got here.
All I'm saying is we are here and the kids need and should have the
right to certain protections. Protection from physical abuse,
protection from overzealous religious brainwashing (that often
results in physical and verbal abuse), the right to form their own
opinions (even if they aren't the same as the adults), after all this
is the result of teaching young adults to think on their own. Why
would we penalize them for doing it? Yet we do all the time.
To reach out to these kids and help them find out what their needs
are and fill them with something other than drugs, alcohol,
hardship, guilt or abuse.
I too feel that if you raise a child with a lot of love, teach them
to respect all others, and make them a part of the working team of a
family...the result will be excellent. I also feel that in that
formula there does have to be "the gift of time." In other words you
do need to make sure the message is "you are the most important part
of my life, if necessary I will set anything and everything aside to
help you or to achieve what you need."
All too often in life we do get caught up in feeling our job, our
degree, our social commitments, our civic duty are more important
that the time spent with our children....and yes, they can feel this
and resent it and it can be a bad thing. Because, it's all about
balance....some kids need more of a parents' time than another. And
yes if getting that advanced degree is more important than filling
the amount of your time your child feels he needs than yes you are
failing. Each child is different and the need of each child is
different and it's up to the parent to fill the need of that child,
but when that doesn't happen, we accomplish more by helping to fill
that need than letting it become an open sore that drives our youth
to find other ways of making themselves feel important.
Also, if the lack of time for the child is because of positive
things, than does that interpret to say that the "community is not
backing up their parents" in helping make the children feel they are
the most important element for all of us?
I'm asking that you put aside the blaming, pointing finger and just
use the energy to think of positive ways that we can respond to these
needs of youth. That is what is MOST IMPORTANT......The KIDS!!!!
JoanB
Date: Sat, 21 Mar 1998 20:23:32 -0800 (PST)
From: Gary You <youngg@uidaho.edu> To: Joan
Berney <JBERNEY@novell.uidaho.edu> Cc: Bert Cross
<bcross@uidaho.edu>, vision2020@moscow.com Subject: Re: Prison
Alternatives
On Sat 21 Mar 98 Gary Young wrote:
Joan, unfortunately you are closer to right than most in our community
would care to admit. I serve the two area Law Enforcement agencies as a
volunteer Chaplain and I have seen far too many of the instances you
describe with families in our communities. I have seen so many teenagers
who are from broken homes and are so angry because a dad or mom is more
concerned about fulfilling their own selfish desires that they ignor their
own children. Area officers grow weary of being called to solve the
domestic dispute and runaway problems when it is the suppossed adults in
the situation who are the problem. There is one easy and only one easy
answer to what is wrong with our communities problems and that is for
people to get right with God. Any way you want to define God will make a
difference in our community except for people to be their own gods and do
what they think feels good. People, get a life.
There are a lot more things more important that you.
Regards and hoping for people to turn toward light and away from darkness.
Gary Young
On Thu, 19 Mar 1998, Joan Berney wrote:
> One very good way to combat overcrowding in prisons is to ensure that
> you have an excellent youth outreach program. Here in Moscow you
> have all the elements to make an excellent Youth Outreach program at
> very little cost to the community. You just need to utilize the
> resources already available in the community and create a few other
> types of outreach out of what also already exists. Why not start
> helping with the problems before it becomes an offense someone needs
> to be imprisoned for.
>
> Also, in the drug-related areas......the war on drugs is the biggest
> crock and waste of money that ever came out of the 60's. Come on!
> lets get real! We are talking billions of dollars spent fighting
> drugs.....yet in communities all over this country (including Moscow)
> Judges, lawyers, mayors, teachers, law enforcement officers,
> doctors, etc. people from all walks of life are involved in drug
> activity, are making their fortunes off the taxpayers on both sides
> of the coin....using, selling, distributing, and supposedly working
> to stop it all.
>
> All the thousands of dollars spent on DARE to prevent drug use by
> youth means nothing if judges and prominent members of the community
> are using and getting away with it.
>
> So in reality, in America....only the poor go to jail for drug
> related crimes......so who are we kidding.....just ourselves
> again!!!!
>
> But then what can you expect from people in a country where too many
> will fall for the flash in the pan of "Clinton" and make him
> president (not just once but twice). We've lost touch with
> reality.....we claim to fight the good battle and then work twice as
> hard to defeat what we are paying to fight for by not doing the right
> thing.
>
> So as long as judges are snorting are snorting the dust, the business
> men are building their businesses with drug money, and the law
> enforcement is spending our money to look like they are fighting the
> war on drugs, we the taxpayer and citizen, again, take it in the
> wallet!!!!!
>
> You know just once I'd like to have that open check book politicians,
> lawyers, judges, and government workers have. Just one trip to the
> grocery store with that open check book would give me a thrill!!!!
> Just one bill paying month to have that open check book would be
> nice! But as a woman who works in a profession that has been
> discriminately held to lower than should be wages, because that's the
> way things are, who has watched people get rich in the war on
> drugs....on both sides. I'm just a little sick of the whole darn
> thing!
>
> I don't know about anyone else but quite frankly I'm tired of getting
> taken to the bank by politicians, the government (who gives me no
> representation) and the judicial system that is just a racket (those
> judges spend more time fining people to add to their retirement fund
> than doing the right thing that would help heal people in the
> community - ex. a couple brought in to court for domestic
> violence...rather than sentencing them to go to an anger control
> class and come back with a certificate showing completion of this
> class, they were fined $1,000 they didn't have - because a good
> portion of any fine goes to take care our already overpaid judges
> retirement fund). These are judges who have not lived up to their
> commitment to the community in the last 50 years they've taken our
> money and done very little to use their knowledge, expertise and/or
> position to make positive changes in the community or the country as
> a whole.
>
> Sorry, but I see the judges and lawyers as nothing but a blight on
> society. Playing their little games and costing us all "way too much
> money"....and they wonder why they're getting the bad rap all the
> time. Well Perhaps it's because they deserve to get the bad rap!!!!
>
> The regular citizen can only hope there is a GOD, because at least we
> know that if not in this world in the next these jokers will get
> what's coming to them....but once in a while wouldn't it be nice to
> just see true justice and ethics being practiced by the local
> professionals or any professionals for that matter. You say but
> there are professionals in this community that are ethical. Sorry!
> I question that? As long as it is a known fact that a judge who is
> using and abusing sits on the bench, every professional aware of
> this, every law enforcement officer who knows about it has become
> unethical for the simple fact that they have allowed this person to
> remain in a position of power when he shouldn't be.....and we know it
> goes a lot deeper than just the judge....but since investigative
> reporting hasn't been invented in Moscow yet, the community can
> pretend to sit in ignorance of what is happening around them.
>
> So as long as the justice system remains in the hands of unethical
> professionals where money decides your sentence, where law
> enforcement ignores the crimes of the powerful and only harrasses the
> poor, and the "righteous" professionals who work with the unethical
> allow it to continue, because "they can't be bothered with doing the
> right thing" we will show the world what a "joke" the word "justice"
> is in America.
>
> JoanB
>
> From: "Bert Cross" <bcross@uidaho.edu>
> To: Greg Meyer <klewprod@valley-internet.net>
> Date: Wed, 18 Mar 1998 11:09:43 +0000
> Subject: Re: Prison Alternatives
> Cc: vision2020@moscow.com
> Priority: normal
>
> I'm sorry I haven't been able to respond to your (Greg Meyer's)
> request for information at the UU Church forum on prisons sooner.
>
> One thing that seemed to come out of it is that we are putting too
> many people in prisons for too many reasons and at the rate we are
> going, the cost will be prohibitive. We need to find alternatives.
>
> Here are a few figures:
>
> On the average, the Nation's incarcerated population grew by 7.8%
> each year since 1985. During this period the state and federal
> prison population grew by 8.2% annually, while the local jail
> population increased by 6.9% each year.
>
> At yearend 1985, l in every 319 US residents were incarcerated; by
> midyear 1996, that rate grew to 1 in every 163.
>
> Since 1990 correctional authorities have had to find beds for an
> additional 482,238 inmates or about 1,700 new inmates each week.
>
> During 1996 the number of female prisoners rose by 9.1%, nearly
> double the increase of male prisoners (4.7%). At year end, 74,730
> women were in State and Federal prisons--6.3% of inmates.
>
> On December 31, l996, state prisons were operating at between 16% and
> 24% above capacity, while Federal prisons were operating at 25 % over
> capacity.
>
> We are putting more people in jail and keeping them there longer.
> More prisoners are women or elderly and have drug problems, AIDS, or
> other chronic health conditions. This means that the cost of running
> prisons is bound to increase, even if we slow down on the number we
> put in jail. Offenders who are in prison for drug-related crimes are
> more likely to have serious health problems.
>
> A major theme that came out of the forum was that we need to work
> harder at rehabilitation and trying to prevent crime and people from
> becoming criminals before incarceration becomes necessary. There's
> no easy answer.
>
> Anyone who has further interest in this topic will find an excellent
> source at <http://sun.soci.niu.edu/~critcrim/> on the web.
>
> Bert Cross
> 1448 Borah Ave.
> Moscow, ID 83843
> Phone: (208) 882-7660
> email: bcross@uidaho.edu
>