Father Boyle on Crime
* Father Gregory Boyle (“Take It From Insiders: Get Smarter, Not Tougher,” Commentary, Nov. 10) says we have to get smarter, not tougher, dealing with crime and criminals. That means addressing the underlying cause of criminal behavior. Right. He then lists six items. All of them wrong!
The underlying cause of increasing criminality is a society that abets the near universal urge to shirk responsibility. Fatherless sons don’t need “mentoring programs,” they need moral men to teach them right from wrong. That means a society that reiterates rather than undermines this imperative. If you want to beget a child, get married and remain loyal to your spouse. We don’t need to “get all the guns off the streets.” We need to get the sense of individual responsibility back into people’s heads.
I would feel far safer in a society where every citizen carried the conviction that life is a sacred gift (and was incidentally armed to the teeth) than in a liberal paradise where every gun has vanished away, but the blame-shifter still feels free to grab the nearest brick!
CHARLES WILSON HEWGILL
Anaheim
* Father Boyle’s column was the most profoundly correct piece of writing to grace your pages in years. As a retired teacher I could never understand how America’s thinking on crime had become so far removed from the truth. You can’t build jails fast enough to handle the creation of the criminal elements in our society. When will we learn to stop creating this problem by ignoring the basis for it?
I can tell you that our schools properly funded and redirected toward after-school care and mentoring programs would go 10 times further in stopping crime than all the jails could ever achieve.
WILLIAM CLARK
Agoura
* Hats off to Father Boyle for injecting some common sense into the “get tough on crime” rhetoric, which has absorbed the Congress. While lawmakers scramble to outdo each other by proposing tougher sentencing guidelines for criminals and more money for prisons, they are failing to address the root causes of crime. Additionally, they fail to see that those who commit crimes assume they won’t be caught, so tougher sentences fail to serve as an effective deterrent.
Unfortunately, there is no real debate on the issue in this country. Those with views differing from the status quo are labeled “soft” on crime. Which is tantamount to political suicide. Adding further insult are those who are demanding more prisons, but at the same time are refusing to have them built near where they live (the “not in my back yard” syndrome). Getting “tough” on crime is nothing new. In fact, the U.S. federal and state prison population has risen an astonishing 150% since 1980 (from 329,821 to 823,414 inmates). Do you think our streets are safer now?
BRIAN G. ROSS
Venice