America-Traveling on a Gravel Road

Life gets tough from time to time and I’m going through one of those ‘times.’  I’m working on capital murder cases and fighting with the State of Alabama over my status with the Office of Indigent Defense.  In addition I am teaching and assisting in the development of a new criminal justice program at a small college in Selma, Alabama, and teaching at two online colleges.

My wife has been dealing with the death of her step mother and caring for her 90-year old father which leaves me with a home full of critters to care for all the while dealing with my ‘stuff.’  Suffice to say that at my age this hasn’t been easy.  Our problems, however, pale in comparison to those shared by many in America.

Over the last ten years there have been a lot of changes in our nation and not for the good. We have seen an evolution in the realm of of gay rights and at the same time a deterioration in the attitudes toward the African-American community.  Because our president is a black man this has kept race relations at the forefront and it has caused the Republican Party to double and even triple down on finding ways to suppress minority voting.

The photo identification laws in primarily Republican states would seem to be a rather innocuous issue. I mean, just prove who you are and that you are a citizen and you have a right to vote in a specific election seems like a no brainer.  However, the steps one has to go through to get the photo identification presents a challenge to a lot of people, particularly the poor in rural areas who were likely home birthed and had no birth certificate.  In addition many of these same people were inconvenienced because of their lack of transportation, but, said the Republicans, there was a need to cut down on voter fraud, a claim they were never able to prove.

Another blow to the right to vote was the striking down of key portions of the voting rights act by the conservative supreme court. How likely is it that an all Republican congress is going to correct that by passing a new voting rights act?  Considering the senate has held up the vote on the new Attorney General for more than five months under the pretense of passing immigration reform first it’s highly unlikely. Instead, we are likely to see more bills diluting support support for the poor, trampling the middle class and attempting to water down ObamaCare.

As to bigotry itself I don’t think it’s gotten worse necessarily but I do believe that it has taken on a more insidious tone with people pretending to not be bigots on one hand, but supporting bigoted ideas on the other.  This is very similar to the Freedom of Religion law that has passed in Indiana and Arkansas  with few reservations. Those legislators say it’s not intended to be used to discriminate against gays and lesbians, but that is exactly what they were doing.

In America we have what is known as “high crime areas,” or the poorest areas of most cities and towns, which, coincidentally, are over represented by blacks. This is also where police tend to focus their patrols and make most of their arrests.

In New York City they tried to address this problem by stopping young, black males, who fall within the category of those most likely to commit a crime and “frisking” them in high crime areas. In doing so they stopped more than a half million people in 2011 and 2012 only to find that 88% of them were innocent of any wrong doing.  Of those that were arrested 90% were arrested for marijuana possession and of those 90% were either black or Hispanic. In general, crime was already down, especially violent crime, so the claims that this  program was the main factor in the downturn in violent crime does not carry much weight. There is a much larger point here however.

If we, as a society, know where crime resides, and the statistics tell us that emphatically, why do we, as a society, take actions to stop or more readily control it?  We have theories aplenty that warn us of children not being properly supervised by parents being a major factor in crime. We know that poverty stricken areas are where crime breeds in substandard housing and slums.  We know that latch key kids with idle, unsupervised time are the recruiting ground for gangs. Social scientists tell us of certain attributes that young children show that may be warning signs of future trouble. The questions becomes, “Why does society not take action?”

Well most of you would answer, MONEY! My response would be: take a look at how much money we are spending right now on our corrections systems.  Every state is busting their budget because of their burgeoning prison population and the majority of the people that are in prison were likely salvageable before they got to there. The juvenile justice system was originally designed to do that, and was doing that until the 1980’s when the “get tough on crime” movement began. Then they began treating children like little criminals and the result has been an upswing in serious crime by juveniles.

Until the criminal justice system finds a way to become more fair and just to all people, and remembers that everyone starts out as a human being, we will continue to have serious crime problems.  America decided long ago to be a violent nation and we are now reaping the consequences of that way of life. Until that changes we will continue to have thousands upon thousands of murders every year and domestic violence will continue to be a way of life in half the homes in America.

America is traveling on a gravel road and we are stuck in the same old rut.

Happy

0 0 %

Sad

0 0 %

Excited

0 0 %

Sleepy

0 0 %

Angry

0 0 %

Surprise

0 0 %