Radical Avenue

The massacre in Omaha followed a familiar pattern: troubled kid decides to go out in twisted blaze of glory, gets an automatic weapon and kills several innocent people before taking his own life. And what have our leaders done to stop these terrorists among us? Our government expects the threat of the death penalty to deter them from acting on their evil impulses.

The threat of capital punishment didn’t deter the murderous kid from Omaha, or the psychopathic student from Virginia Tech, or the teen killers from Columbine. Why? Each of these young murderers administered the death penalty on themselves after finishing their killing spree.

Capital punishment never deters suicidal killers. With violent crime rates still on the rise in America, it apparently isn’t deterring many other would be killers either. A more effective crime prevention policy would include aggressive intervention in the lives of at risk kids before they resort to violent crime.

Like the others, the young killer from Omaha was known to the local law enforcement authorities. And like the others, the authorities didn’t do enough to put this kid on the right path. There’s no magic bullet when it comes to helping emotionally disturbed youngsters. Some need long term mental health counseling. Some need job skills training. Some just need a stable home environment where they can feel welcome.

Assisting wayward kids and giving them an opportunity to live a normal life isn’t glamorous. However if we hope to stop the carnage in our schools and shopping malls anytime soon, it’s worth the investment.

terrorists, Omaha, violence

Apparently the nomination of Mike Mukasey for Attorney General has run into a snag over his refusal to acknowledge that waterboarding is torture. Actually Mukasey’s response to a simple question is torture. Of course the Senate Judiciary committee may choose to bring Mr. Mukasey back in for more questioning. I imagine it might go something like this:

Senator Leahy: Good morning Judge Mukasey, how are you today?
Mr. Mukasey: It would be inappropriate for me to discuss specifics with regard to my overall health at this time. I can assure that once I become Attorney General, I will speak with all of the doctors on my staff and if necessary go through a complete medical evaluation. After I have gathered enough evidence to determine how I am, I will provide this committee with a comprehensive report on the matter once I have reviewed it with the President. The United States does not torture.

Senator Leahy: Ok. Can I at least assume that you’re feeling well enough to testify?
Mr. Mukasey: While I have no reason to believe that I’m not feeling well enough to testify, I can not in good conscience tell you that I am indeed feeling well enough to testify. The question requires me to consider information which is not available to me at this moment. I can tell you that if it turns out that I am in fact feeling well enough; then in that case I would be able to testify. Naturally I would also need to brief Administration officials on how I am feeling. I must point out to you that Congress has never passed any laws indicating how I am feeling. By the way, torture is personally abhorrent to me. It’s worse than brutal and barbaric, it’s naughty.

Senator Leahy: I gather from your testimony thus far that you will not be providing a straight answer to any questions today.
Mr. Mukasey: It would be inappropriate for me to speculate about the nature of my testimony before I have actually completed such testimony. The United States does not torture.

torture, waterboarding, Mukasey, Attorney General, Senate, Senator Leahy, Senate Judiciary committee

The current nominee for Attorney General can’t say if water boarding is torture. It’s mind boggling. For a long time people joked about how the Bush administration wants to take our country back to the Dark Ages. Apparently the joke is on us. Of course water boarding is torture. It refers to holding someone’s head under water until they believe that they are about to drown. If the inquisitor’s timing is a bit off, the subject does drown.

Senator Leahy is holding up Mike Mukasey’s nomination for Attorney General until he can satisfactorily answer the question of whether water boarding is torture. The Senate should reject the nomination forthwith. If the guy doesn’t know if water boarding is torture, then he has no business serving as the chief law enforcement officer in the United States.

It would be one thing if President Bush had earned the benefit of the doubt when it comes to cabinet level nominations, but that’s not the case. Bush has never been anything but dishonest and hyper-partisan in his dealings with Congress. The Senate’s job is to give advice and consent on nominations. Since Bush never seeks advice from Senate Democrats, there’s no reason for them to roll over and consent to Bush’s nominee just because he tells them to.

Senators like John McCain, Lindsey Graham and other former military officers oppose the use of water boarding for obvious reasons. Sometimes our soldiers are captured and we want them to be treated humanely. If we torture prisoners that we’ve captured on the battlefield, our enemies will do the same to our soldiers. We’ve already seen this in Iraq. The Senate needs to just say no.

torture, water boarding, Mukasey, Attorney General, Senate, Senator Leahy

When Arnold Schwarzenegger was elected governor of California in the 2003 recall of Gray Davis, he advertised himself as a different kind of politician. He has been anything but. Instead he has proven himself to be very much like his irresponsible Republican counterparts in Washington. He loves to propose expensive new public programs, but doesn’t want to pay for them. He expects future generations of Californians to pick up the tab for his spending sprees. Leaders are honest about the cost of new roads, bridges, schools and water projects. Arnold Schwarzenegger is no leader.

California could seriously use some leadership when it comes to prison overcrowding. For decades California politicians have responded to rising crime rates by throwing more people in the slammer. Under the three strikes law, some convicts are serving life sentences for relatively minor offenses. Now a federal judge has appointed a judicial panel to consider capping the California prison population. That would lead to the early release of prisoners in order to relieve the overcrowding. In the meantime, juvenile delinquents get sent to out of state boot camps.

If California politicians would only look past the next election for once, they would see that a more proactive approach is desperately needed. Instead of treating juvenile delinquents as throwaways, they should be recognized for what they really are: at risk children in need of life skills training. If these kids don’t receive the meaningful help they need to turn their lives around, they are virtually guaranteed to spend most of their adulthood behind bars. We’ve got enough convicts in California prisons already.

Arnold Schwarzenegger, California, prison, California prison crisis, prison overcrowding, leadership, juvenile delinquency, boot camp, violent crime, crime prevention

In the past 20 years or so it has become fashionable for states to send their juvenile delinquents to “boot camps” on the other side of the country. The idiocy of this policy is only now becoming apparent. These faux boot camps treat incarcerated children preparing for life as though they were young adults volunteering for war. When the kids fail to do as their told, they get yelled at, roughed up and occasionally, beaten to death.

The decision to send juveniles to boot camp like settings is based on a faulty premise. At real boot camps, recruits receive training in how to become soldiers. They learn to use firearms and carry heavy munitions through hostile terrain. Soldiers need these skills before they ship out to war zones like Iraq and Afghanistan, where they will be asked to hunt down and kill people. That’s what war is all about.

These skills won’t help juvenile delinquents. At risk kids don’t need to carry around 60 pound packs or shoot someone from a distance of a hundred yards. These kids need life skills. They need to know how to keep their cool in stressful situations. They need to learn how to handle bad news without resorting to violence. And they need to know how to maintain gainful employment so that they can make a decent life for themselves. You can’t teach youngsters these lessons through physical or verbal abuse.

When children are confronted by a physically imposing drill sergeant, they will be intimidated. But those kids will grow up one day. Then they will intimidate others. That’s what they learn from life in “boot camp”. Do we really want a bunch of mini-warriors on our streets?

juvenile delinquency, boot camp, war, violent crime, get tough, crime prevention, prison

Dr. Phil gets it. He deals with dysfunctional families often on his show, and is especially critical of bullying men. Let’s face it. Men are usually the perpetrators of domestic abuse. Dr. Phil deals with the problem directly in what he calls “man camp”. The guys who show up for man camp know they need help. And rather than assigning blame, Dr. Phil gives them the straightforward advice they need to stay cool in stressful situations. It can be as simple as getting up and walking away for a few minutes when the temperature starts to rise.

We all take classes in high school that have little practical value for us in the real world. How many people really need to understand trigonometry? Many adults on the other hand, engage in parenting every day. But parenting class is not typically a part of the high school curriculum. It should be.

Parents may not realize how spongy kids are. They learn about what it means to be an adult by observing the behavior of the adults in their life. If parents scream obscenities at each other every day, then kids will learn that this is how adults normally resolve their differences. Some parents constantly belittle their children and as a result those kids come to believe that they are indeed fat, lazy and stupid. And when parents physically assault each other, kids learn from that too. That’s why domestic abuse is so dangerous. It’s a toxic lifestyle that gets passed down from one generation to the next.

violent crime, domestic violence, domestic abuse, crime prevention, Dr. Phil, man camp, abused children

Our political system in America encourages superficial solutions to complex problems. Politicians looking to get re-elected every two to four years need catchy slogans that have an immediate visceral appeal to easily distracted voters. When it comes to violent crime, “get tough” is the slogan. Everyone immediately knows that this means long prison sentences or death for the predators we hear about every night on TV. Anyone proposing an alternative solution is derisively called a “bleeding heart liberal.” We should ignore the political posturing for once and focus on the most effective way of dealing with the problem.

It is survival of the toughest in American penitentiaries. Finishing a sentence and walking out of prison is like graduating from crime school. After convicts spend a few years in the system, they harden into lean, mean, tattooed fighting machines. These people have plunged head first into a life of crime and for the vast majority of them, there’s no turning back. That’s why we need to aggressively intervene in the lives of at risk children before they turn to violent crime as a way of life.

When a man comes home at night and punches his wife, he’s teaching his children that it is OK for a man to physically assault his wife. When a woman threatens her husband with a weapon, she’s teaching her children that it’s all right for a woman to threaten her husband while brandishing a weapon. Parents who do these things are raising monsters. They have no right to teach their children these lessons. Children raised with abuse grow up to be abusive as adults. A strong public campaign to end domestic violence will go a long ways toward ending violent crime in general.

Here are links to organizations working to protect at risk children: International Center for Missing and Exploited Children, Stand Up for Kids, Child Molestation Research and Prevention Institute and The Safe Side.

violent crime, domestic violence, domestic abuse, get tough, crime prevention, prison, recidivism, abused children

For more than two decades, small minded politicians have touted “get tough” policies to deal with the problem of violent crime in America. These policies have been a dismal failure. Not only has getting tough not made our communities safer, according to the FBI, violent crime actually increased in 2006. This increase shows that “get tough” was never anything more than a political slogan. America deserves a crime prevention program based on an objective analysis of potential solutions.

In California, the government spends more on prisons than it does on public universities. This emphasis on incarceration places a tremendous financial burden on taxpayers. First we hire the police officers that track down suspects. Then we hire attorneys, judges and juries to try criminal cases. Finally we pick up the bill for all the costs of confinement in our burgeoning prison system. While in prison, convicts do not pay taxes or contribute to the support of their families. Victims often require assistance as well. And when convicts get released, they typically return immediately to a life of crime.

American crime prevention programs cling to the outdated notion that tough punishment for criminals will deter potential lawbreakers from acting on their evil impulses. Unfortunately criminal violence often emerges from circumstances of anger or intoxication. Deterrence has little effect on people who are inebriated, emotionally unhinged, suicidal or mentally impaired. Some people are dangerous because they react to every stressful situation with violence. Physical confrontation is a way of life.

A more proactive approach is needed. Focusing on eliminating domestic violence would be a good start. Kids learn from their parents. Parents who resolve their disputes by physically assaulting each other are teaching this behavior to their children. And the cycle of violence repeats itself in the next generation.

crime, domestic violence, get tough, crime prevention, criminal justice