Red Herring, for Kids!

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!