Crime

The video, Crisis in Our Inner Cities, provided an excellent depiction of one of the key problems facing our society today – youth violence. As I watched the video I was amazed how accepting the children were of the violence that surrounded them. Many expressed fear, yet at the same time seemed resigned to the fact that this is just the way life is. Saddening, to say the least.

This assignment asks that I, based on what I saw in the film, come up with suggestions or ideas on how to prevent this type crime. Honestly I’m at a loss. In one of my other classes we talked about wicked problems. Problems so complex, that finding a solution is often difficult, if not impossible. I think that this issue certainly fits that category. That is not to imply that I am suggesting that this issue should be ignored – it has been ignored for too long. What I am saying is that a problem of this magnitude is not going to be solved easily and solutions that work in one city may not be applicable in another.

I grew up in a different time, in a neighborhood that was lower middle class. We didn’t have a lot but we did not really want for anything either. Both of my parents lived in our home, as did both of the parents of my friends. We played football, after school, in the field next to my house everyday of the week. Fights during games or after games were common place. However, whenever a fight did break out nobody ran home and got a gun in order to break it up. Rather, the adults that lived near the field would come out of their homes and stop the fighting. Some did not even have kids playing there, yet they still came out. As kids we knew if any adult said to stop we stopped. This is part of what makes this issue so difficult for me to grasp. How can the adults living in these neighborhoods care so little about the children? The sense of hopelessness expressed by the children in the video was maddening.

So, how do we solve this issue? I believe that it starts with improving the education system. The video emphasized that many of the people featured had received poor educations. In fact one of the young men had received his high school diploma, yet he could only read at a second grade level. I can remember when I was learning how to read and my grandfather would always tell me how important it was to be able to read. He would say, if you can read you can learn how to do anything, you can fix a car, build a house or even fly a plane. Ironically, he did not know how to read. But he knew that having an education was essential to my ability to have a better life. 

One of the gentleman interviewed said that the inner cities needed mentoring centers – a place where young people could go and be around positive role models. In my opinion this is one of the functions of our schools. Today and even more so in the future, having an education is going to be necessary in order to find quality employment. In fact, one of the first steps of the Cleveland Works program was improving the person’s level of education. Therefore, one of the keys to solving this issue is improving the inner city schools and education systems. The schools should provide a beacon of hope to the children living in what seems like a hopeless place.

I do not see any connection between the issues featured in the video and SB1474 or SB1070. While the film did make the point that accessibility to guns was part of the inner city problems, the issues deal with a completely different set of demographics.  

I realize I got a little off the assigned track in this post. However, I feel strongly that instilling knowledge in our children and improving the education system, especially in the inner cities, is the foundation to solving the problem of youth violence and many of the other issues that plague our society.