Reply to WaPo editorial board: people are scared of crime

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[quote=Anonymous][quote]

Anonymous wrote:
I no longer go running in my neighborhood (H Street) because of recent uptick in shootings, stabbings, and car jackings in broad daylight. I'm very progressive but don't by into the "abolish the police" nonsense. It would be one thing if we were identifying and implementing crime abatement policies that were actually doing anything, but we're not. You can't abolish the police if you aren't doing anything to prevent or deter crime. The violence interruptor BS is just that -- BS.

I truly believe if we adopted more progressive social policies -- universal health care, low cost or free college, improved supports for the unemployed and families (not just money but actual support in the form of job training and placement, affordable housing, etc.), we'd find we could reduce our emphasis on police and prison. But you can't just abandon our current means of crime abatement without addressing the lack of social support. It won't work, as we are currently seeing.

Education is the key, without education reform not much will change. And one part of it is recognizing that not everyone needs to go to college in its traditional sense, and providing viable professional training programs (trade schools) and paths outside of 4 year colleges is the key. Free and affordable education options, ways to opt out of last 1-2 years of traditional HS by creating blended education allowing getting your GED together with some skills you can use right upon graduation. Maybe rethink community colleges and make them more practical? Maybe rethink how we hire people, getting paths to young people with internships and apprenticeships into real world experience vs. telling them lingering in low paying service jobs is the only way outside of traditional 4 college degree.
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We certainly need all of the above, but the juveniles doing the carjackings, beatdowns of neighborhood dads with basketball hoops, and murders are too far gone to be saved by these programs, unless they are forced into them in a juvenile residential facility.  The violent need to be locked away from the rest of us.  I am all for them being educated and trained for productive employment, but that needs to be done WHILE they are locked away for some period of time.  Otherwise they are  not going to participate.    And the police know the several hundred violent juveniles in the city who are the repeat offenders causing 90% of the problems.  And get real about affordable housing.  There is a LOT of "deeply affordable" housing in DC where poverty, crime and poor choices are multi-generational.  Simply providing more affordable housing without requiring participation in the educational work programs described above does not help.  People simply do not realize how much being able to take advantage of apprenticeship programs is dependent on coming into it equipped with the human capital work ethic skills to be successful.  A kid who has grown up in public housing where no adult around them has held down a regular job and gotten up to go to work is already starting from behind.  [/quote]

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