Crime and Order
Crime is the enemy of order and society’s goals (Life, Liberty, and Pursuit of Happiness)
Much crime is caused by lack of opportunity in legal pursuits. poverty, and unemployment.
The American Dream “Life should be better and richer and fuller for everyone, with opportunity for each according to ability or achievement regardless of social class or circumstances of birth.” James Truslow Adams 1931
Crime Arises from Three Major Sources
- Lack of employment income
- Results from no belief in legitimate prospects and lack of skills, often served with a side of attitude
- Lack of respect for others
- Never learn respect at home, in the neighborhood, or at school
- This includes police officers who treat legitimate protesters as criminals, especially renegade officers who use excessive force on unarmed suspects. This Wild West vigilantism where police do not trust the justice system to hold criminals sufficiently liable leads to this draconian equivalency—one less suspect means fewer crimes. Obvious flaws are:
- Your soul cannot be read from the look on your face
- Innocent people can be in crime area (like being there is a choice)
- A suspects assertion of personal dignity does not threaten the social fiber. It does not demand a maximum response with deathly force.
- Personal greed outpaces legitimate salary
- This is the source of corporate and white-collar crime, ranging from lifting from the supply cabinet to bilking stock owners to hiding corporate mistakes from affected consumers.
Historical analysis conducted at the end of WWII with concern over veterans returning numb to killing and often with guns. American Historical Association.
What Causes Crime, in Is a Crime Wave Coming? (1946)
- We base our first moral standards on our closest contacts during our formative years. We behave as do the people we like and admire, because we are eager to have their respect.
- It cannot be emphasized too strongly that in spite of the temptations, the large majority of slum children grow up to be decent, law-abiding citizens. It must likewise be admitted that criminals do occur among all classes of society.
- Poverty and the slum life which it causes are not the only sources of crime. Sometimes lack of intelligence or a disordered mind is responsible. Sometimes the emotional life of an individual is warped by conflicts, the nature of which we do not yet fully understand.
Education
K-12. For a high school diploma there must be less emphasis on academic achievement and more on development of personal abilities, relationships in society, and employable skills.
- That is, less requirements for courses in British monarchs, trigonometry, and balancing chemical equations.
- More immediate courses such as how much does that item cost? I gotta work 15 hours to buy that very nice dishwasher my significant other wants.
- Skills for talking through interpersonal problems and listening to other’s perspective.
- Money and credit management for adult households.
- Job position expectation. Lifestyle supported by student’s targeted occupation.
Fair Opportunity
A full-time job demands a salary sufficient to support one person. It is an error to try to support a family on a job only capable of supporting a single person. Lifestyles supported by various jobs should be taught in the ninth and tenth grades, to ensure potential dropouts are reached.
- When students finish the K-12 curriculum, they are guaranteed an apprentice slot in your diploma field.
- Businesses and associations should earn tax credits when they add a new job for a diploma holder. Also because businesses benefit from an improved workforce, they are assessed an annual fee/tax for the benefit of that education system.
- Students will have studied the relationship between your field, typical income, type of lifestyle the salary supports.
As this pandemic and economic dislocations has shown, many full-time employees in essential services and positions are paid too little, the minimum wage.
The existing minimum wage should cover part-time workers, twenty hours or less per week. A new minimum living wage should cover full-time, more than twenty hours per week.
- Minimum wage for teenagers and supplemental workers, governing part-time job wages, should be separated from minimum living wage.
- Minimum living wage for full-time employees (greater than 20 hours per week) should be high enough that government assistance (e.g. food stamps) is not required by an employee responsible only for themself.
- Employers should be penalized if their lowest paid employees require healthcare and support programs at the public’s cost.
Order and Society’s Goals
With the next generation of K-12 better trained in developing all their life style skills, with a greater understanding of their relationship to society, and more honed work skills, we can expect a reduction of crime. Not just on the street but in the boardroom and from nameless white-collar workers who wield more power than they feel their pay compensates them for.
With the improved skilled workforce, the United States economy will flourish under the stimulus of fixing and managing the ecology of our piece of the planet.
Related Posts
Dare We Change to meet the goals of the United States.
Image Citations
Chalk outline of a victim. Image on Unsplash by j4p4n, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons
Enron Logo of the infamous energy company which exploded by Paul Rand, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Stock chart of Enron’s nosedive which bloodied many noses from Nehrams2020, CC BY-SA 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Image of Community Harmony. Photo by on Unsplash by Omar Lopez
