Identifying Causes and Prevention of Gang Violence

No one will disagree with your editorial “A Summer of Stray Bullets” (July 13), that we should try to identify causes of gang violence and then try to prevent them. What bothers me is that sociologists have already made numerous studies.

It doesn’t take a Ph.D. in the behavioral sciences to recognize that poor socio-economic conditions breeds violence. These are the same conditions that tear families apart and cause teen-age suicides. This problem is not going to be solved until there is a serious e1717989234system.

This leads right into your other editorial, “Dwindling Foster Home Program.” Contrary to your view on institutions, we desperately need more Orangewoods, not fewer. Children no longer belong in homes where they get battered, abused, and are unwanted. We should no longer gamble with the lives of children who cannot fend for themselves. We must remove these children as early as possible from abusive and neglectful parents.

If our kids are going to be saved, we are going to have to rely on more institutions like Orangewood and less on foster parents. There is ample evidence in the world today that institutions can and must do the job of rearing kids.

Unless kibbutz and Summerhill type of boarding houses are created, I guarantee that there will be more, not less summers with stray bullets.

BENNY WASSERMAN

La Palma