Amnesty, n. The state's magnanimity to those offenders whom it would be too expensive to punish.
What I think we should be doing is refocusing all the prevention budgets, all the money spent on teen gangs and young offenders, on conception to age two at a rate of 2% a year.
Despite the fact that in America we incarcerate more juveniles for life terms than in any other country in the world, the truth is that the vast majority of youth offenders will one day be released. The question is simple and stark. Do we want to help them change or do we want to help them become even more violent and dangerous?
The thing about youthful offenders is that no one seems to care about them. Most people don't like adolescents - even the good ones can be snarky and unpleasant. Combine the antipathy we feel toward the average teenager with the fear inspired by youth violence, and you have a population that no one wants to deal with.
It is incumbent on the media industry to discourage the glorification of media violence. It is also incumbent on consumers who love America to support this effort with selective patronage campaigns to encourage media that provides uplifting content and to boycott the worst offenders, if necessary.
Giving low-level offenders a second chance, no matter the color of their skin or the economic status they hold, can create opportunity for all of us.
Under many current state laws, minors who have been victims of trafficking are charged as criminals and go to juvenile detention as offenders.
It is time to put more cops on the beat and remove our most violent repeat offenders from our neighborhood streets.
The broad consensus is that our system should be better structured to deter crimes without giving up on everyone who commits them, and should better balance resources to hold violent criminals fully accountable without imposing unnecessarily harsh sentences on nonviolent offenders.
We are a humane society, and one which believes that we have to help rehabilitate offenders so they turn away from crime.
