The Citizen-Times has a writeup about an Asheville program to discourage people from joining gangs. The program is funded for two years by a $730,031 grant from the Governor’s Crime Commission. Statewide, the commission has granted a total of $62 million. The funds will be disbursed among eleven agencies.
The district attorney’s office already encourages the courts to sentence stiffly those found guilty of gang behavior. Police say a 40% decline in calls for gun crimes last year could be attributable to the charging of 30 gang members with 140 counts since 2006. At that time, as I recall, the police chief was denying that gang activity existed in the city at all.
Anyway, reformers want more. For example, they want programs to mitigate the destructive consequences of imprisonment so it won’t be so much of a deterrent. They would also like misbehavior to be rewarded with free job placement and psychological counseling.
Something there is that doesn’t like a program. Yet, government loves to spend money on them whenever there is a problem. It’s a way of saying, “Let’s not, and say we did.” Of all government programs, which are considered a success; and if some are considered a success, are they really a success or is somebody just digging them because they are receiving short-term benefits?
The article closes with intimations that government needs to take care of kids, because parents have to work. More realistically, people these days believe that pets require responsibility, but children don’t. The attitude is a means of diverting funds from a legitimate, needed, and under-funded government activity into fluffy feelgood like afterschool programs. By this action, government is wresting parental power: There is an envelope of parents on the margin that have to work more hours to pay the taxes to subsidize the programs.
