Troubling
Watched a trial the last couple of days. A man was convicted of five counts because he was an illegal alien who had re-entered the country, got caught with a gun and with cocaine a few minutes after he pointed his gun at a car. All this happened around 3:30 AM one night last summer, over in the neighborhood near the Stratosphere.
On the one hand, I'm all for people doing dangerous, stupid, and illegal things getting the "book thrown at them." Makes me feel safer at night.
On the other hand, I've seen far too may people from the "wrong neighborhoods" get convicted this summer. We have social problems in our cities that need addressed. If you live in an econcomically depressed part of town, your chances of getting in big time trouble are really high compared to many of the rest of us.
I'm not smart enough to have solutions to all of this. I am just becoming convicted that if we want to serve the poor and needy of the world, we can find them right in the city we live in. We don't have to go around the globe. And if we don't do something to change the way things are, huge slices of certain demographic groups will keep getting up chained up in federal pens. I've seen it happen all summer.
5 Comments:
Hold on a minute G., I think your logic is faulty. I don't believe that if I moved to an economically depressed area I would be any more or less likely to go to jail than I am now. I think the way to define this phenomenon is that more criminals live in poor areas of town.
True enough! I suspect, though, that very few people like you and I ever move to an economically depressed part of town. For the most part, people are either born there or they move there from the economically depressed part of some other town or nation. And that might explain my observation.
I am not claiming to have been impoverished or anything. However, I had a parents who chose to take the hard working, but not instantly gratifying road of being honest and hard working. We all have choices don't we? Even if we live in not so great neighborhoods, we can choose to do right or wrong. I grew up in government subsidized housing.(O.k. so my spelling may have eluded to that fact) I was a WIC food consumer, well my mother and siblings were and I simply benefited. We didn't have a telephone or car most of my childhood. We never had cable. I delivered newspapers in apartments behind Rancho High School to earn the money for little extras that my parents could not afford to give me. Adam has clients who just bought a home, but are moving out of from behind the Stratosphere. The are honest, hard working people, with good hearts, morals and values. They are in there 40's and buying their first home. They might not have had the most charmed lives, but they didn't choose a life of crime, and not that everybody can or will, but are able to move up to a nicer neighborhood.
I will agree that often it seems as though the lower income, especially minority population in our great nation seem to be getting the raw end of the stick, but they don't have to accept it. There is always a choice.
i think is should clarify. i didn't mean to imply that 1) cops target poorer neighborhoods, or 2) that poor people are more likely to be "bad."
what i meant to imply was that for many people it is very difficult to find a way out of the situation they are born into and "make it" without ending up in trouble. some people do it, which is noble. but for those who don't -- part of the reason is that they really don't have the same opportunity that some of the rest of us have had. and, we are not just innocent bystanders as we enjoy our advantages. at least that's my educated opinion.
Sounds like a "mission" for someone or some church who is inclined to intentional mission. Now, where would I find one of those?
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