Through a recent article regarding Early Interventionism for "at risk" youth, Stan Knee and Adrian Moore suggest that we shift our focus and tax money from prison expansion to programs for youth who example criminal tendencies, the idea being that we stop the kid before he becomes a criminal.
Their target audience almost solely being parents, their attempts to make reasonable points based on what we would assume as fact would be considered noble, true, and seemingly the best option for our kids.
But as always, I disagree.
Their main goal is to teach these “at risk youth”
how to better cope with anger problems and successfully exist in society, which
in itself is not a bad thing. However, that is the job of the parent; we should
not have to pay for someone to do the parents’ job for them.
To be fair though, the fault does not rest solely on
the shoulders of mom and dad. The way to emptying our prisons lies at a much deeper
place, government. That is, too much government. A widely known fact to anyone who
has actually studied the prison system, except for Knee and Moore, is that the
working class and the poor produce most of the criminals that fill our
ever-growing prison system. Many programs like the ones being supported by Knee
and Moore do far more harm than good, especially in the long run.
Minimum wage,
government slums/housing, and welfare masquerade as crusaders for the less
fortunate, however, overtime they prove to be deceiving money pits that do
nothing but provide permanent crutches for the poor to limp on and the middle
class to pay for. Often when government tries to legislate people out of
poverty they do nothing but increase it. Raising minimum wage does nothing but
force companies to compensate for their payroll increase by terminating other
employees.
Surely more of these failed government interventionist
programs are not the answer.
Moreover, the foundation for Knee and Moore’s logic
is research and studies that we know nothing about, they simply flash a few
respectable names like “Governor” and “Texas A&M”, and lull us into
believing their statistics, without us even giving a second thought as to if
they are set up to profit from this change.
In short, their intentions unclear and their motives
and logic suspicious, it is unwise to heed their suggestions.
Wise up, and rise up!
