Crime

Sunday, August 13, 2006

Today's Washington Post Outlook Section features an article on crime and crime statistics. It's about the realities of "the streets". One of the interesting observations is that much of the neighborhood killing is because of "slights", "grudges", and the unwitting and also purposeful ignoring of gang rules, politics, and culture. How can crime and violence be reduced when these gang social systems not only prevail, but are also a sanctury for the angry, lonely, the disenfranchised, and the unsophisctated about the conflict resolution benefits of civilized discourse and behavior? In a very extended analogy, aren't we looking at a world-wide cultural divide where these same kinds of people resort to tribalism and its attendant dedication to murder without conscience? I wonder sometimes if the surge in murder in murder neighborhoods isn't about copycat behavior of those who see the settling of scores by nation states and jihadist groups of all types?

Politicians world-wide continue the same rhetoric that we need to get to the core of the problems. But they never do. Example, the rather late European, UN, US manufactured cease fire that both the Israelis and Hezbollah are thinking about. Meanwhile, the Israelis continue their push into Southern Lebanon to "root out rocket sites" and establish a zone where a UN/Lebanese peace keeping force can then occupy and monitor. We don't know just what other strategic thinking is going on that "gets to the core of the problems": the Hezbollah and Hamas goal to wipe Israel off the map; the Israeli goal of either eliminating or controlling its enemies, and the reason every Israeli-US action creates more converts to radical Islam. Is anyone ever going to take the long view and dedicate considerable time to understand what's really going on now and find incremental ways to resolve conflicts?

The US is famous for declaring war. Remember the war on poverty. We not only have more people living in poverty than before, but we now have a middle class struggling to meet their responsibilities for shelter, food, education, a job, and access to affordable and top quality health care. This has all been said before; but what hasn't taken hold is that in order to solve these problems some government teamed with various non-governmental organizations devoted to these issues, you have to know them, pay attention to them, and have strategies that are flexible but aimed at success. The US, even in the good old "Great Society" days stuck with their bureaucratically devised "program", and failed to evaluate them and change them to follow their goals. Then, everyone tired of "the poor" and few of these programs remain.

One of the ways of defeating these problems is to stop declaring war on them, but instead just go out and do something that works. Example: the work of Dr. Paul Farmer in Haiti. With hard won and now consistent funding from philanthropic organizations, he set up a modern hospital in one of the remote areas of Haiti, and went about his business to provide quality medical care. It's the old story of "if you have your health, you have everything".

Another example. There is a charter school in Boston devoted to providing real education and counselling to poor, mostly, black kids who have been kicked out of the public school system. This population is very small, but the program, as reported in the New Yorker, works. In order for a student to stay in the program, he/she has to learn and become disciplined and civilized citizens. Key to creating discipline, each student is required to master Mandarin Chinese before graduation. This seems weird on the surface. But when you think about it, it makes sense to force young and very distressed children with no emotional grounding, to find a place where they can see their own achievement by mastering something absolutely foreign to their everyday experience.

All of these efforts at crime reduction, standard health care, and education would never be cllassified as "wars". But they are lessons to be learned and models to be repeated where civilized behavior is rarely the strategy to settling disputes and solving problems. Actually, everything I have written goes directly to the meaning of conservative. That is to preserve and maintain a civilized life and return to the "old values".