that the cure lies in a renaissance of personal responsibility and a reassertion of responsibility over rights and community over egoism. There is definitely a need for more study on the new breed of teen criminal -"the Super Predator". We don't need yet another library full of jargon riddled criminology studies to tell us what the Roman sages knew: what society does to children, children will do to society. Most in the education as well as the psychological fields will blanch whenever the terms values, church, responsibility, and family, are bandied about. But the inescapable reality is that since the sixties, when these terms were castigated and relegated to "being quaint", we have witnessed an incredibly fast and pernicious rise in the types of pathologies that have accompanied the decline of the family structure. While I am by no means a religious zealot, it seems to me that government has been a poor substitute for the family and the church in teaching basic core values. Government certainly has a role to play financially, but the strictures and the applications of any type of largess need to come from Community leaders or clergy members who have a real stake in the community. While it is tragic that there seem to be a large number of "lost youths" mired in a life of crime and violence, the safety of the community, especially the children in the community, should be the primary concern. I will side with John DiIulio and agree that we need more churches, but I also feel that more correctional facilities need to be built to house young offenders. If children as young as 7, 8, or 9 years of age need to be incarcerated like adults, then do it. While this may seem harsh, I believe that it is the only way to prevent further decay. With harsher enforcement of laws towards violent minors enforced, attention can be paid to addressing the ills that create the problem, family decay. More attention needs to be paid to the people who actually l...
