Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, June 6, 1990 TAG: 9006060396
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-10 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
In the June issue of The Atlantic magazine, Karl Zinsmeister paints a horrifying statistical portrait of the effects of violence on American children. He makes a strong case for redefining "family issues" in such a way that would put the physical safety of children at its center.
Zinsmeister notes that:
Three-quarters of the children in this country live in metropolitan areas; one-fifth live in low-income households.
Of the teen-agers who visited one Baltimore health clinic, 24 percent had witnessed a murder; 72 percent knew someone who had been shot.
Three million crimes - rape, robbery, assault - take place in public schools every year.
In 1987, 338,000 students admitted they had carried a handgun to school at least once; a third of those carried a weapon daily. Many more carried knives.
More than 1,000 black children were murdered in 1988.
Those numbers are shocking. Drugs - specifically cocaine - account for much of the violence, but drug use is symptomatic of a larger problem: the destruction over the past 30 years of the family unit and the government's inability to replace it with various social programs.
As Zinsmeister notes: "The nuclear family is not a perfect institution, but it is a necessary one." For too many children, the loss of strong family structure combined with poverty has proved a lethal mix.
How to protect the children? Zinsmeister describes a Rhode Island plan in which the state works with parents to keep children in school and out of trouble. He calls for large-scale reforms in welfare and public housing. "Housing projects are petri dishes for family disintegration," he accurately observes.
One immediate need is the restoration of order in public schools. The problem may be more apparent in the roughest inner-city schools, but it's spreading. Zinsmeister argues that strict enforcement of discipline backed up by effective punishment of those who break rules - suspensions, revocation of driver's licenses - can result in violence-free schools.
He has a point. Harsh, rigidly enforced penalities are severe, and should be applied only when other methods fail - but some schools have turned into virtual war zones where strict measures are necessary.
Zinsmeister also suggests that some children already have been so traumatized by the brutality of their environment that they are beyond help, and limited public resources should be expended where they will be most effective. That's an issue for fuller debate.
For now, it would be well if more people shared Zinsmeister's focus on the personal safety of children. This society must see that its most vulnerable members are protected from abuse whatever its source: criminals, parents or peers. Without at least assuring their safety, how can we expect children to realize their potential?
by CNB