Colorado Gov. Roy Romer has put in place a plan to curb violence in our streets. It isn't bad. But like similar plans in other American cities, it doesn't go far enough. The killing of children by children continues, and there's no reason to believe it's going to stop.
Is there a way to pull cities like Denver back from the brink? Is there a way to revive cities like Detroit, Washington, D.C., and Los Angeles that fell over that brink years ago?Maybe, but it will require much more radical policies than most of us have been willing to consider so far. Let me give you just a few examples of the kind of tougher approach we should be debating on both the state and federal levels:
- Give judges the power to suspend the driving licenses of kids convicted of even minor crimes. Make driving without a valid license a felony. At the very least, this would reduce the mobility of the gang-bangers and decrease "drive-by shootings."
- Make it relatively easy - but mandatory - to obtain a license to possess a gun (just as we do with drivers' licenses). Impose severe penalties for possessing a gun without a license. Impose even more severe penalties for the possession of a weapon by anyone who has been convicted of a serious crime. (Note: This would not abridge the constitutional right of law-abiding citizens to bear arms.)
- In Colorado, teachers now have the power to expel chronically disruptive students. That's a good start but, as critics have pointed out, what becomes of those expelled? Here's an answer: Re-institute the draft and call up anyone who has been thrown out of school or has dropped out of school. Place these kids in a special training corps which would be separate from the volunteer Army but which would be run by specially trained military personnel. Recruits would not learn military skills - instead, they'd get basic education and/or vocational training in a highly disciplined, highly structured environment. Include a community service component: planting gardens at hospices, for example, or assisting in park cleanups.
- Place young criminals in a similar but even stricter "boot camp" type program. Make it an alternative to prison at judges' discretion. Keep them in it for a fairly long time - two years at a minimum - to ensure that they absorb the lessons and internalize the discipline.
- Decriminalize and de-glamorize drugs. Think about it: Instead of letting young gangsters make big money and lead exciting lives in the narcotics game, what if we were to sell marijuana, cocaine and heroin through government-licensed pharmacies and treatment centers? The savings realized (by eliminating police costs, court costs, prison costs and the failed "war on drugs") as well as the revenues raised by taxing drug sales could go toward treatment and to the miltiary-style programs discussed above.
- Re-establish the idea that it is wrong - not just inconvenient or foolhardy, but wrong - for anyone to bring a baby into the world until and unless she is emotionally and financially prepared to care for it. Encourage young women who have children out of wedlock to give those children up for adoption. As sociologist Charles Murray recently put it, "Illegitimacy is the single most important social problem of our time - more important than crime, drugs, poverty, illiteracy, welfare or homelessness because it drives everything else."
Most of these proposals would not be easy to implement. All are controversial. But the old bromides and palliatives - "wars" on poverty, setting up non-parental "role models," banning all guns, building more prisons, prohibiting TV shoot-'em-ups - are clearly not going to achieve our goals. Let's at least talk about adopting policies that might have an impact.