Letter to the Editor

All This Violence is Reprehensible, but Understandable

Dear Editor:

Recent gun crimes in our city and in our country (aside from isolated incidents where the cops in other locations became criminals), are not due to failure of law enforcement. Police are there to arrest the lawless-minded culprits who hurt others without justification, but they can never solve the social pandemic that exists. The scourge we have is parenting failure. Children learn behavior from example.
In my 75 years on this planet, I believe that kids who grow up bad do so more likely than not because they were not subject to following the good life behavior and direction of two parents. Fathers who are sperm donors, and not much else, is the most glaring predictor of a child-most likely a male child-to grow older without acceptable ethics in his heart.
We have too many irresponsible mothers mating with irresponsible men. There are too many women raising multiple children - all with different fathers - who are AWOL from what they created. To those women who flout the good spirited and well-intentions of taxpayers providing welfare income and food stamp benefits to become producers of children who are not being taught by good-living examples, I say that I am appalled and ashamed of you. We have had bad parent problems that lead to the proliferation of crime. Children learn to abide by the Golden Rule from parents who are attentive to them - not from older kids in the neighborhood who also grew up in a vacuum of good parenting.
Poverty - yes, that is part of the social problem. School dropouts - yes, that is part of the social problem. But these both stem from the undeniable fact that many teenage and young adults age-up without seeing the good example and guidance of good parenting. Responsible parents administer consequences to their children who misbehave at home and this sinks in as a learning tool to respect the law when they are not at home.
We cannot hire enough police officers to prevent crimes. They are vital to arrests and prosecutions after crimes are committed, but a cop on every block will not prevent murders, assaults, burglaries, rapes, theft or shootings. Criminal behavior is the product of deficient parenting. It is there that the problem of lawlessness is created. I am intimately familiar both with criminal victims as well as those who were charged with crimes who were products of irresponsible parenting. Bad parents are often the products of bad parents who fumbled that responsibility. Unfortunately for all, that beat goes on.

Louis G. Garrot
Retired Attorney
Felony Criminal Prosecutor and
Criminal Defense Attorney
Abbeville