Letter to the Edito: Watch out in our community

Posted

Dear Editor,
Oh my God that car just went by at 100 miles per hour on our side street endangering ALL in its path, including children, family and our precious fur babies!
The new police chief in town can do one of two things:
1. He can have his officers give the 18 year old offender the speeder (note: his race does not matter) a nice heart to heart talk about the dangers of speeding and how a Mommy would be sad at the injury of her child or a Grandma whose Peekapoo doggy named Rhonda, got! well! let’s just say Rhonda went to poochy heaven and Grandma would be devastated because of his speeding transgression against “COMMUNITY” standards, but all the offender receives from the officer is a pep talk and a warning slip! “(If you like this technique you like Restorative Discipline).”
2. Or he can have his officers chase down that car down pull the offender out ( once again his race matters not) handcuff him, set him in the back of a patrol car and write him a $400 dollar ticket and set a cozy date with Judge Brewer who probably appreciates children’s and fur babies safety as much as the rest of us law abiding folks where they can discuss that hefty fine and how soon he is going to pay it or do weekends in jail! Instead! (If you like this technique you like Punitive Justice).
Let me save you the time from wrestling with your conscience, here are real world examples from my once 18 year old self and many of my once young good friends.

1. Warm fuzzy warnings lead to repeated dangerous behavior!
2. High-cost tickets and court dates save would-be good people by correcting their behavior quickly!
3. Multiple repeat offenders their conscience and empathy often has been set by four year olds and cannot be fixed with encouraging words in a police pep talk or school setting it must be dealt with clinically or in many cases institutionally.
Watch out in our community for terms like restorative discipline, justice, equity, equity of outcome it’s just a pop psych fad designed to insinuate that you are intellectually inferior and that, my Perry County friends, could not be more wrong!
God Bless and with all respect,
Keith Alexander Carroll,
Perryville