Reply to A Boy Was Jumped and Robbed by a Group of Kids at Bethesda Mall tonight 4/7

Forum Index » Metropolitan DC Local Politics

Reply to "A Boy Was Jumped and Robbed by a Group of Kids at Bethesda Mall tonight 4/7"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]There's a reason kids feel it's okay to randomly, violently attack strangers at malls, metro stops, etc.  There's a reason.  It's what they are being taught at home, on internet, on TV, in schools.  What are they being taught?  Religion is a joke to be mocked and name called, anger and violence is glorified in some contexts, big one here - external locus of control over their lives, etc. Wake up people.  Our society is becoming like a violent criminal training camp.  This will only get worse until we teach better. [/quote]

Actually it’s due to poverty & lack of treatment for mental health issues.[/quote]

Poverty? For what reason can I walk around safely in many other countries where people are dirt poor compared to our poor, and not be concerned for my safety?[/quote]

Because they have housing, food and healthcare.[/quote]

Are you kidding right now? There are many many countries around the world where social supports are worse than the US and poverty is worse but you don’t have the crime you have in US cities. Crime is about culture not just poverty[/quote]

This. The prevailing idea that violent crime against others is just a consequence of being poor is both untrue and an insult to the overwhelming majority of poor people who are hard working and law abiding. They are also most likely to be victims of crime, the soft on crime approach doubly victimizes them. [/quote]

I wonder if the design of the U.S. social support system is the root cause.  In those countries without support systems, people often have to expend a lot of time and energy to procure enough resources for food, lodging, etc. without anything to fall back on.  However, if you meet certain criteria in the U.S., all of those basic needs are taken care of for you.  And the criteria can be gamed.  Therefore, you now have a lot of people with a lot of time on their hands, and no constructive outlet for that time because they are disadvantaged to begin with.  The group of kids that jumped the boy likely had their own phones, shoes, etc.  There was no basic need to jump someone for a better phone (iphones are apple ID locked now...), more expensive shoes, etc. unless it was for fun or greed (assuming they didn't know each other from a personal beef).  In a lot of the countries without support systems, the parents also make the children work with them and basically supervise/consume their time too.  Yes child labor is exceedingly bad, and that kind of system just perpetuates the poverty down the generation, but it is one explanation of why crime in lower in those countries because what you do with time is opportunity cost.  That's not to say there shouldn't be a support system of some sort, but that support system also needs to consume the recipients' time.

And since this example is specifically kids, the lack of consequences in the juvenile criminal justice system may also play a large role.  Many police departments want nothing to do with children because of the bad optics it brings.  That's why they typically just release to parents and more often than not the child reoffends because the majority of parents in that situation didn't care in the first place.  [/quote]

Affordable housing waitlists are YEARS long in many U.S. cities.[/quote]

I thought that most criminals in the U.S. are housed?  The police reports usually say so-and-so from x town, every once in a while you get a no fixed address.  There is a lot of crime centered around public housing locations.  Or do you mean living in public housing contributes to the crime?  Some private landlords accept Section 8 voucher so they'd be outside of the public owned options.  [/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics