EXCERPT
It must be emphasized that my whole thesis really boils down to the belief that we cannot correct our problems of poverty, addiction, crime and violence by routinely treating its real victims and those who victimize as numbers or at the other extreme, as victims of some sort of injustice or oppression. They are people in trouble and what has happened to them is a consequence of many factors some of which we can understand, some we can correct and others we cannot define, let alone "treat." We need to have a working concept of how these things came about and then try to find means to change them. We can as we have, separate out the "offenders," study them and then "treat" them, - very likely, with the same abysmally poor results that we have had in the past, so we simply incarcerate them to protect society and we restrain the violent criminal. Substance abuse, crime, violence and their cousins, anger and hatred are virtually an epidemic in our society and especially in those areas that have been given short shrift by the larger society, and in more recent years, where prejudice, fanaticism, and the blood lust of self appointed purveyors of Gods word have become pandemic.
Many communities have decayed, the people have become directionless and are without hope. Many lives are bereft of meaning or a valid reason to live into the future. Whatever gratification there is for some people seems to be in the here and now and the "devil take the hindmost" has taken on new and nastier meanings and the real victims of crime and violence grow in number exponentially. My suggestions bear directly upon such individuals, families, neighborhoods and communities. New life needs to be infused into decrepit and abandoned communities and a new ethic defined for our society that is not so very different from what we already profess to believe, at least according to the Judeo Christian tradition that seems to have been replaced in many minds and places by a culture defined as "I take care of number one" and to hell with the rest of you! Time grows short
|