...to my sanity, that is! No, this isn't your typical college student rant about gargantuan homework loads or lousy professors, though I'm quite certain I could compose such a reading if I was asked.
I have a research paper due this semester, and I chose to write about preventing juvenile delinquency. The more I researched, my feelings towards the issue became all the more vivid and poignant. Pardon my french, but who in the hell decided we should put kids as young as 7 or 8 years old away for life, without a chance of parole?! We're sending babies to prison! Granted, I'm not dismissing lethal behavior or averting personal responsibility, but who, being of right mind, can look on a very young child commiting very adult crimes and not see a victim of extreme hurt themselves?
With that, here's a little something I had to say...in "scholarly writing," of course:
"Children and teens do not stumble into delinquency or a life of crime by mere happenstance. Rather, most youth that have been labled as "criminals" are often products of a failed social system: absent and self-absorbed parents, under-budgeted school systems which intend to pass the baton of responsibility for social ills on to the justice system in the name of "zero tolerance" policies, supposedly aimed at "safer education", and communities who assume no obligation for their cities youngest residents. Moreover, juvenile offenders are often faced with ample time and inadequate adult attention, supervision, and intervention. Given this lethal combination, today's societal trends all but endorse delinquency."
I'm not angry; I'm motivated! Do the up-and-coming generation a favor and love on a child. :-)
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