Full of It

Moxie *hearts* Sam Fulwood.

Inaction is a recipe for a nightmare
Thursday, February 01, 2007
Sam Fulwood III - Plain Dealer Columnist

For two weeks, I've shared in this column a dream to fix Ohio's juvenile justice system.
Actually, it's been my hope to avoid a nightmare.
I worry that at some point the law-abiding and tax-paying public will reach its limit.
These good citizens will become fed up with multiple generations of teens having children they can't afford or care for. Large numbers of voters will become weary of seeing their taxes spent on problems they don't think affect them.
Enough, these good citizens will shout. They will demand public officials do something to quell their fears for once and for all of time.
And I'm frightened by the potential for a politically appealing backlash against troubled youths and their families.
As it stands now, we have no public policy regarding parenting and too few policies to support distressed families.
Laws to control intimacy and family life are contrary to our notions of individual liberty. We assume that consenting adults have a right to reproduce and, as parents, they have the right to raise their children as they see fit. Or not, as it increasingly seems.
Indeed, many parents aren't equipped to raise their children. Some are children themselves. But the law doesn't discriminate in these matters.
If a pattern of family deterioration continues without intervention, it's easy to imagine an angry public's call to action.
What if gangs of young people commit some horrendous mishap or series of incidents - a riot, multiple murders or a string of unsolved rapes? For sure, citizens expect to be safe.
But I fear the easy, quick and popular response could toss aside our notions of family autonomy and privacy.
Should it be public policy that some women (poor, under-educated and unmarried) be required to undergo birth control or sterilization? Should some men be neutered? Who decides?
Some social observers argue for a return of orphanages to hold the babies of irresponsible mothers and reckless fathers. Why not have public or private agencies take and raise the children born to children?
Maybe voters will embrace a plan to establish boundaries or containment areas to restrict where scary youths are permitted to assemble? Already some libraries and shopping malls have such policies. Do we need more?
Or should communities crack down harder with jack-booted policing in ghettos and housing projects, while building more prisons and keeping youth offenders in them longer as adults?
I've heard versions of these solutions from sober and well-meaning people at all levels of our community. Mostly, they parrot a mantra of making parents fix the problem, as if it were just that simple.
To hear them, bad behavior by young people is a major reason (or excuse?) for middle-class flight from Cleveland. But the challenges are everywhere, even in the most affluent suburbs. Nobody can move far enough away to escape completely.
Unless every concerned citizen takes a proactive, non-crisis response to the issues affecting troubled children and their parents, there will be no peace anywhere for any of us.
Our community's inaction and denial frighten me. The future cure could be worse than the current disease.
To reach Sam Fulwood III:
sfulwood@plaind.com, 216-999-5250