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The answer to curbing violence may be found @ President Barack Obama's former employer--the University of Chicago. Have you made the connection between the study of complex sociological ills & proponents of free market economics?
Consider following the late President John F. Kennedy's advice during the depths of the 1960's recession, "ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country!"
Education alone won't fix this. If we're really talking about violence among young blacks in Chicago, we have to look at the fact that few of them live in two parent households as well.
I'm sure the Mayor will chalk it up to gun laws not being harsh enough...
Tougher gun laws: the answer that's never been a solution.
Crime will continue to exist without social support structures that allow parents to find employment and financial stability while being able to send their kids to a school system that provides an education and opportunity for them to have a future in getting a college degree and therefore move toward social mobility. It also requires an education system that doesn't teach to a test, but rather recognizes the challenges of a system that's long passed along students who shouldn't have passed and need extra help.
Of course, this all goes back to money. The city's broke! The state's broke! Shoot, the Federal government is trillions in debt!
Good luck raising taxes, because it's politically unpopular and given the recession and already high unemployment rate, you could see even less revenue.
The best option right now is to create middle-class jobs and put people back to work, thereby bringing money in through natural revenue growth. This means having a pro-business environment that doesn't just compete locally, but globally. This means recruiting a workforce from outside the midwest that's educated and can live and work in the city/state at places that see Chicago as a city worth establishing themselves in.
I might be cynical, but I think we'll see a quick fix "solution" for the violence, a press conference, poorly thought legislation and maybe a step-up in policing and enforcement. But no one will offer any real, long-term solutions that address social ills holistically.
Sounds like Chicago needs Batman.
Haha, true! I think we ended up with a Ra's al Ghul instead though.
What's the first piece of that plan that needs to happen though?
-Improving the business environment?
-Recruiting workers into the area?
-Bringing in more money from....what?
Priority one, I'd say job creation. Without jobs, you can't collect tax revenues or grow your revenue base naturally. The key is realizing that the old, "blue collar" jobs are gone because of globalization and building the kind of local economy on jobs that don't focus on services that can be outsourced. A larger focus on medical, research, technology and financial fields would be a start -- and we do offer quite a lot of that already. It's just a matter of finding ways to help there be more companies here and growing them. Not really sure what things you can do through legislation and such, but I'm sure people have ideas about what's needed. If Chicago has jobs, then people will come.
Still, I think you could simultaneously work on reforming the education system. I'm not an expert on this topic, but I'm sure there's been plenty of academic study on this that could be applied. Some of it will require more funding, but other reforms probably could save money.
At the end of the day though, you still may need more revenue -- especially if your aim is to provide social services to assist people to become upwardly mobile -- and that will mean a tax increase. Illinois has had tax increases before, but it's really hard to sell to the voters. I think that if you wanted to really get that tax increase passed, you'll need to show voters a significant amount of reforms in Medicaid, education and the pension system. If people don't feel that their government is actively working to find ways to reduce waste and improve itself, they won't want to keep funding it with more money from their bank account. Even then, I'm not sure a tax increase is possible politically right now with the voters.
Now that the Olympic fiasco has come and gone, guess what? The whole youth violence thing seems to have stuck around.
The biggest problem is that things are relatively safe and calm on the North Side. As long as the scary stuff feels like it's happening in "the other Chicago" I don't see a whole lot of people taking actual action on this.
What kind of action can one actually take with something as nebulous as "youth violence in Chicago."
No amount of marching and speechifying will stop the fact that kids in bad situations do really stupid things when they lack supervision.
Is Arnie Duncan coming to talk to you like the national equivalent of being sent to the principal's office?
Libertarian's dream: decriminalize drug use & treat residual additictions. Divert money spent on incarceration to help impoverished families prosper by the sweat of their own brow & the strength of their own character.
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