Assessing
the perpetual challenge and duty that faces each generation of adults—preparing
youths to become the leaders of tomorrow—it has become clear that
for a growing percentage of youths something is amiss.
Too many youths feel left out, left behind, and are gravitating toward
dead-end lives guaranteed to bring heartache to all involved. Unfortunately,
once again, we’re specifically talking about gangs.
Differing views are beginning to emerge about best to deal with gangs.
Judge William Byars, the current executive director of the SC Department
of Juvenile Justice, suggested during two speeches in Darlington County
in recent weeks that punishment via law enforcement was not the answer.
Byers went so far as to suggest that too many students were being charged
with “disrupting schools”, and that youths were being charged
with too many other ‘lesser’ offenses that were bogging
down the system and creating more problem kids than it was solving.
He suggested that mischievous behavior typical of rebellious teenagers
was being over-prosecuted by quick-on-the-trigger adults.
N&P
Opinion
• Parents need to be held accountable for their responsibility
to provide lives that steer their kids away from gangs
• If shame doesn’t do it, society must find ways to demand
parents do better, even if that means penalties of some sort.
That opinion is not shared by all local law enforcement officials, parents
or administrators, many of whom feel that the consequences of certain
misdeeds must be certain punishments. If youths feel that adults will
cave in and avoid dispensing punishments, behavior will only get worse,
a logical counter-argument suggests.
Judge Byars’ larger point is that what’s been done in the
past—specifically a pro-punishment system that favors jail fatigues
and barbed-wire fencing—clearly hasn’t worked, and instead
has promoted a pro-gang youth culture that views troubled pasts as badges
of honor.
DJJ sentences became recruitment opportunities for gangs, he suggested.
The root causes of the rise of gangs must be addressed for real solutions
to be found.
It seems what’s needed is a flexible mixture of approaches, and
not an all-eggs-in-one-basket tack. Sending the signal that a variety
of misbehaviors will inevitably result with slaps-on-the-wrists won’t
do society many favors. Likewise, treating misbehaving children like
pariahs won’t solve the problem either.
Byars is right when he says that until gangs are an unattractive choice
for disenfranchised youths, they will continue to gain strength. Poverty
clearly is a debilitating contributor to this issue, as it is with test
scores and just about every other social ailment facing youths today.
But it’s also clear that one of the greatest vacuums filled by
gangs is left by underachieving or absent parents. A vast percentage
of gang members come from single-parent households, Byars said. It seems
a cycle is afoot, set in motion by ineffective parents who set troubled
children adrift. Perhaps those parents were once set adrift as well—hence
the chicken-and-the-egg argument ensues.
The cycle must be broken, and the only way to do that is to draw a line
in the sand, to acknowledge larger causes but to still ultimately hold
parents responsible for their children. People seemingly not willing
or capable of parenting will still have kids, human nature being what
it is, so all society can do is to demand more of parents.
Too many parents rely on others to do their jobs—whether its school
officials, law enforcement, social services, etc.—and that dumping
of responsibility onto others begs for disaster. Legislatures are reluctant
to impose sanctions on parents for poor performance. The reasons are
many: such as how do you assess such a tricky, perpetual task as parenting?
All parents make mistakes, after all.
But the bar has to be raised, and children—the carriers of the
future—must be the beneficiaries. That accountability has to be
built in somehow, and when shame isn’t a naturally correcting
consequence anymore, society must step in and impose the penalty.
Consider that a successful future is certainly not the natural consequence,
the likely result, of a neglectful group of parents.
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