A Different Look at Police Reform
We all heard about the 92-year-old
woman in New York who had been hit in the face by a man walking past her, who
pushed her to the ground where she hit her head on a fire hydrant. The story tells about how the 31-year-old man
had been arrested 103 times. Really, 103
times and not in jail? He is 31 years
old. What makes a repeat offender
allowed to still be on the street?
Parents sometimes believe their children can’t do any wrong. Parents think Johnny is a good boy and he wouldn’t do anything bad. I remember when my mother called the police because a child several doors down had stolen my sister’s bicycle. The police took my mother to the house and the little girl (about 10 years old) came to the door and confessed that she had taken it and where to find the bike. Then the mother came to the door and asked what the police were there for. The officer told the mother who got very upset because her child would never steal anything. The officer must have made her confess. The officer told her she had even told him where to find the bike. The mother then told him her daughter was mistaken to give the information because she couldn’t possibly know where the bicycle was. Guess where the officer found the bicycle? Right where the girl said it would be. This took place in the 70’s.
Fast forward 30 years to when my husband was teaching Special Ed in the State Prison system. He had a student whose father was notorious in our area. He set 18 people on fire and 5 died. When he was talking to my husband about his crime he said he had stolen wooden pallets and returned them to the pallet companies for the deposit money. When asked if he was caught he said he was, and he always had to pay a fine. Well, how did he get the money to pay the fine? “I worked the fine into my overhead,” he said. What he didn’t know was that after 24 times of paying a fine, he would need to do prison time. Luckily he was put in school during his time in prison so he could get his GED. He had hopes of going to college. He was a smart kid, according to my husband. He was advised to never hang out with the people who helped him with the thefts and to find a new group of friends when he got out.
The point of this is to tell you that all parents think the best of their kids. Thinking the best is part of love and parenting. As parents, we also want our children to learn there are consequences to their actions. It isn’t easy to discipline our own children because we love them. Our children have the free will to keep running in the wrong circles, to misbehave, etc. As parents, we don’t want anything bad to happen to them and certainly we don’t want to write a letter for our Christmas Cards that tell friends we have one child in State Prison. How sad is that?
There are other things that come before prison and that is where there is a break down. Judges saw the young man who was stealing wooden pallets. Perhaps they should let him pay a fine and give him the opportunity to change his ways. That would be great for the first time, maybe, but he went before a judge 23 times without consequences other than paying a fine, which he worked into his overhead. Judges have lots of tools at their fingertips other than sending a child home with a monetary fine, just to commit another crime. A Judge was put in place to hear a case, look at the past history and then act IMPARTIALLY. Let the parents love their children but judges need to bring the child to the harsh realization of their actions much earlier. You are above the parents, not equal to the parents. You are not the one obligated to love them, you are the one who is obligated to assist in putting them back on the right track. The parents are charged with loving them. Don’t let their love of the child “who would never do anything wrong” be what influences your consequences for this youth. You were put in your position so the youth, male or female, will learn early on there are consequences to your actions.
One of my husband’s students was 17 and the boy was obnoxious in the classroom. My husband had used the term “young man” when he spoke to him. The student said “I am a man, I am a father of three children.” His response to the young man somewhat shocked him into reality. He let him know that he was a “sperm donor” who was in prison. It takes more than that to be a Father. He is in prison and not playing a part in their lives. These three children may have a Father if Prosecutors and Judges did their job toward making these youth into great parents themselves and gave consequences the first time they were in front of them.
The color of your skin should
not matter when it comes to discipline. We
all come from the same two people God put on this earth. We have all the same organs, blood vessels
and lymph nodes in the same place. Color
of your skin is NOT an excuse. The examples above were 75% white children and
only one black person. The guy in New
York was the only black person. Prosecutors
and Judges, don’t look at the color of skin, look at the crime and past record. Think about the best question you could ever ask
yourself – “Is this the punishment that should be given in light of their past
crimes, the crime they are there for now, and how can it lead to a stable life
with hopes and dreams for a stable future?”
Help make their parents and grandparents proud. People blame the police
for everything but this would be the best reform, for Prosecutors and Judges to
do their job!
When parents don't do their job of teaching right from wrong, someone MUST teach them right from wrong and it begins with you. Again, it has no bearing on the color of your skin but as was said by Martin Luther King "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by content of their character.” Parents, give your children a better character, something you can change.
