Stay Out Of Jail Please

Violence is slowly escalating. Crime escalates for multiple reasons, but the biggest one has to be jobs. If you don’t have cash, even good people do crazy things. I fear that crime is going to become a huge issue for the next mayor. The choices they make will have generational repercussions. We have seen crime escalate in our city before and are now witnessing a generation lost to the streets because of our policies.

There are plenty of people in our city who could fill the available jobs. There are available jobs, and there would be even more if all the jobs were filled because of the ability to grow. The city should be spending money on programs training people for the available jobs. Don’t just give them the job; first, have the city train them in short three-month programs to understand the labor force. Then keep them up. Have a support system to make sure people don’t fall through the cracks to help their mental psyche. We should spend the money truly needed on support systems. Anyone who is a first-time offender goes through this course. We can also make this course available to the under-served community, so there isn’t a first-time offense.

You have to believe that if we stop dribbling money at these problems and change the entire path we have been on, then our cities would all be better off. This bleeds out to the neighborhoods surrounding cities. It is good for everyone. Pour money into a new program that creates a positive outcome. As nothing ever does, it won’t work for everyone, but we have to have new ideas. The old ones didn’t work so well.