Creating Killers
It was one of those stories that cut through the clutter. A Chinese-American man persuaded his father to go shopping with him in Oakland. The father, an immigrant who lived in San Francisco, was leery because of the image of crime in that city. The son assured him that this was a safe area. By all accounts, it was, in fact, safe...for Oakland.
The father dropped off the son and parked the car. The son was punched in the face by one of two black youths. When the father rejoined his son, he learned what happened and went looking for the youths. They found them. The youths attacked the father, knocking him to the sidewalk. The father died of his injuries.
The youths are in custody. There are witnesses and videotapes. The cops say they had been drinking rum from a bottle and were generally angry about their lives. They had been arrested as juveniles for violent crimes. The police also say they think that this wasn’t racially motivated, though that seems to stretch credulity.
The family of the dead man will hold their pain for ever. The senseless nature of the crime, the seemingly unimportant and innocent decisions that led to the murder will never add up.
The boys will go to prison for a long time, and then they will be released. Will they have been rehabilitated? Um, no, not if statistics have any foundation. They will get out, commit more crimes; likely more sophisticated felonies that they will learn from their prison colleagues.
That points us to the critical issue in this matter, as it is in most violent crimes, and as it is ignored in virtually every similar case. What caused these boys to turn so bad? Failed parenting, sick neighborhoods, lack of intervention by social workers and schools. So only the killers will be held accountable and we will do nothing about what produced them and what will produce more.
©2010 SetonnoteS
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