Ohhh, gosh - around my kitchen table this time we almost needed a referee...More than one!
Nearly every night each network [local and national] lead with some form of crime - usually tied to gun violence. So much so that anyone visiting from another galaxy would refuel and leave - quickly - likely for the refuge of a nice black-hole somewhere in the Universe.
From crime and criminals and criminals going to prison - the discussion naturally began to cycle around to the 2nd Amendment - then ran amuck from there...
But we can't really discuss the 2nd Amendment without first understanding 'why' it was included in the constitution of our newly formed Republic and its original 'meaning' because the intention and meaning in 1788 is quite removed from the interpretation the NRA would have everyone believe, today.
It's really, really very simple. Having thrown off an oppressive king - our founding-fathers intended that ordinary citizens not only had the individual right to share in governing themselves, the individual also had the right to defend themselves against [a rogue] oppressive government...So in the future if members of our Congress arbitrarily suspended the U.S. Constitution then began to block our freedoms - we not only had the right to protest - we had the responsibility to protest...
But gun violence in America is not the only element that contributes to America's level of criminal incarceration which is the highest in the world at 716 per 100,000. Easy availability of so many types of guns is only one means of wounding or ending a human life. People murdering people is the result of a mental and emotional void.
IF our culture - if this Republic is to "shine" as it should - then the way to address Prison Reform is to address - DESPAIR...And desperation begins in childhood - years before anyone is arrested and/or sees a courtroom.
*America can't afford to have even one child become desolate and lose heart by the age of five! Each and every one of the people in prison today was once a cute two-year-old with promise...
Amazingly it's preschool where our Prison Reform needs to take root. On any given day in America there are 440,000+ children in Foster Care and the average child lives in Foster Care from two to five years.
Too many are in Foster Care much longer than five years, with no family or permanent home of their own until they turn 18. Then when a foster child turns 18 [ready or not] they are out on their own. There is far more media coverage and advertising for homeless pets that need adoption - than for [homeless] foster kids who need adoption.
Social Workers are asked to do so much with too many dwindling resources for about the same pay level, as police and teachers and long hours. Their caseloads are typically 19 families with an individual file load of 24 to 31 children. Our state and federally elected representatives cut budgets in the very areas that should never see resources diluted. We need more not less coordinated programs in our schools where teachers can identify families and kids at risk - better coordinated with our department of social services - who work with community services [police] officers. But all of this should be service oriented - not punitive, so parents who need help actually seek it for themselves and their kids.
With a childhood of abuse and/or shame from poor neighborhoods that don't get the same education/tax resources as middle class areas - kids often grow up angry and resentful. By the time they meet-up with police they have already been 'punished' in many forms, so prison really isn't such a negative. And with an alarming trend toward privately run prisons - there is less incentive for rehabilitation programs because private prisons are a for-profit business. Since 2000, the number of private prisons in the United States increased 39%. [I find that well beyond alarming.]
Our society expects a great deal of police, teachers and social workers who truly need expanded annual budgets and greater community support. As taxpayers we need to ensure the professionals working in all three of these vital [social] areas have what they need, because when they do - we benefit. America gets happier more productive citizens and less people [so deeply hurt] they end up committing crimes. Prison reform can be an important part of updating our infrastructure. And in an election year what better time to get the attention of politicians who need to provide this undivided attention. We're throwing away thousands of perfectly good people who don't need to end up in a prison...
https://www.socialworkers.org/LinkClick.aspx?fileticket=Mr2sd4diMUA%3D&portalid=0
*Sherrie Todd-Beshore was a feature writer and columnist [for a number of magazines & newspapers Memoir From 'There' to 'Here'] who shifted to fiction in 2006 with 16 novels in print. This blog attempts to highlight some of the social issues now reaching critical mass in America. The next one is Balance: Infrastructure In America...
http://www.patchworkpublishing.com
Nearly every night each network [local and national] lead with some form of crime - usually tied to gun violence. So much so that anyone visiting from another galaxy would refuel and leave - quickly - likely for the refuge of a nice black-hole somewhere in the Universe.From crime and criminals and criminals going to prison - the discussion naturally began to cycle around to the 2nd Amendment - then ran amuck from there...
But we can't really discuss the 2nd Amendment without first understanding 'why' it was included in the constitution of our newly formed Republic and its original 'meaning' because the intention and meaning in 1788 is quite removed from the interpretation the NRA would have everyone believe, today.
It's really, really very simple. Having thrown off an oppressive king - our founding-fathers intended that ordinary citizens not only had the individual right to share in governing themselves, the individual also had the right to defend themselves against [a rogue] oppressive government...So in the future if members of our Congress arbitrarily suspended the U.S. Constitution then began to block our freedoms - we not only had the right to protest - we had the responsibility to protest...
“A well-regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”
During the Revolutionary War era, “militia” referred to groups of men who banded together to protect their communities, towns and eventually states, once the United States declared its independence from Great Britain in 1776. Many people in America at the time believed governments used soldiers to oppress the people, and thought the (new) federal government should only be allowed to raise armies (with full-time, paid soldiers) when facing foreign adversaries. For all other purposes, they believed, it should turn to part-time militias, or ordinary civilians using their own weapons.
But as militias had proved insufficient against the British, they gave the new federal government the power to establish a standing army, even in peacetime. However, opponents of a strong central government (Anti-Federalists) argued that this federal army deprived states of their ability to defend themselves against oppression. They feared that Congress might abuse its constitutional power.
So, shortly after the U.S. Constitution was officially ratified, James Madison proposed the Second Amendment as a way to empower these state militias.
However, nothing James Madison or any of our founding fathers could have anticipated or set down in our constitution would address individual - rational logic. In 1788, many citizens with weapons owned single shot muskets...Two hundred years later rapid fire semi-automatic and automatic weapons were owned by many "ordinary citizens". Essentially single individuals had gained the ability to function as a one-person militia and the number of copycat mass shootings that began with the 21 deaths at a San Diego McDonald's in 1984 - was not the work of a citizen protesting a rogue Congress [the shooter was delusional] and the weapon he used was 'not' what James Madison intended.But gun violence in America is not the only element that contributes to America's level of criminal incarceration which is the highest in the world at 716 per 100,000. Easy availability of so many types of guns is only one means of wounding or ending a human life. People murdering people is the result of a mental and emotional void.
IF our culture - if this Republic is to "shine" as it should - then the way to address Prison Reform is to address - DESPAIR...And desperation begins in childhood - years before anyone is arrested and/or sees a courtroom.
"Children are influenced by the society
in which they are born and raised.
They in turn, influence society."
David Liederman
*America can't afford to have even one child become desolate and lose heart by the age of five! Each and every one of the people in prison today was once a cute two-year-old with promise...
Amazingly it's preschool where our Prison Reform needs to take root. On any given day in America there are 440,000+ children in Foster Care and the average child lives in Foster Care from two to five years.
Too many are in Foster Care much longer than five years, with no family or permanent home of their own until they turn 18. Then when a foster child turns 18 [ready or not] they are out on their own. There is far more media coverage and advertising for homeless pets that need adoption - than for [homeless] foster kids who need adoption.
Social Workers are asked to do so much with too many dwindling resources for about the same pay level, as police and teachers and long hours. Their caseloads are typically 19 families with an individual file load of 24 to 31 children. Our state and federally elected representatives cut budgets in the very areas that should never see resources diluted. We need more not less coordinated programs in our schools where teachers can identify families and kids at risk - better coordinated with our department of social services - who work with community services [police] officers. But all of this should be service oriented - not punitive, so parents who need help actually seek it for themselves and their kids.
With a childhood of abuse and/or shame from poor neighborhoods that don't get the same education/tax resources as middle class areas - kids often grow up angry and resentful. By the time they meet-up with police they have already been 'punished' in many forms, so prison really isn't such a negative. And with an alarming trend toward privately run prisons - there is less incentive for rehabilitation programs because private prisons are a for-profit business. Since 2000, the number of private prisons in the United States increased 39%. [I find that well beyond alarming.]
Our society expects a great deal of police, teachers and social workers who truly need expanded annual budgets and greater community support. As taxpayers we need to ensure the professionals working in all three of these vital [social] areas have what they need, because when they do - we benefit. America gets happier more productive citizens and less people [so deeply hurt] they end up committing crimes. Prison reform can be an important part of updating our infrastructure. And in an election year what better time to get the attention of politicians who need to provide this undivided attention. We're throwing away thousands of perfectly good people who don't need to end up in a prison...
https://www.socialworkers.org/LinkClick.aspx?fileticket=Mr2sd4diMUA%3D&portalid=0
*Sherrie Todd-Beshore was a feature writer and columnist [for a number of magazines & newspapers Memoir From 'There' to 'Here'] who shifted to fiction in 2006 with 16 novels in print. This blog attempts to highlight some of the social issues now reaching critical mass in America. The next one is Balance: Infrastructure In America...
http://www.patchworkpublishing.com
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