When you witness a police officer committing a crime, who do you call? In Chicago and other big cities, it's too easy to be brushed off. If there are officers on the scene, well, what's the problem? B-b-b-b-but it's the officers who are robbing this place. It's a police sergeant who's punching and kicking a barmaid who thought he'd had enough to drink. It's the officers who are shaking down a motorist. Are you sure? Well, you can file a report maybe, or hope other officers will be sent. If you file a report and you happen to live in Chicago, you may as well plan to move. Having the Fraternal Order of Police mad at you isn't much better than pissing off the Mafia. If other officers are sent, the guilty ones may just say "We have this under control" and the new guys will dutifully leave. Maybe have a laugh about it at a favorite cop bar later, I suspect.

Now I happen to believe that most police officers are rightly motivated. They want to uphold the law, and they're not just thugs with guns and badges. Unfortunately, some are just that, thugs with guns and badges, and even more unfortunate, the code of silence prevents other officers from cleaning up their own house. At the end of the day, it's almost part of a police officer's job description to become a silent accessory to police crime. The officer who breaks that rule may simply get the cold shoulder, or may be framed for an offense of which he or she is innocent. In the worst case, the officer who tries to do the right thing may be rewarded by being set up to be injured or killed in the line of duty. How? Easy enough. "Murphy, you're just in time. Check out the garage while we go around the house." (Failing to mention that an armed offender was just seen entering the garage.)

Over time, organized civilians can and have successfully combatted police corruption, but in a condensed period of time, when you're the witness to a crime being committed by an officer, or the victim, you're close to helpless. If you try to intervene, you're taking your life in your hands, not to mention risking a charge of interfering with an officer performing his or her duties.

Of course it can happen everywhere. Police misconduct just happens to be one of many areas in which Chicago often excels. But remember the Forensic Files episode of the officer who got a warrant to arrest his former girlfriend on the basis of completely false accusations against her 15-year-old son? This happened in a non-metropolitan area (if memory serves me correctly). The woman had begged police authorities to keep him away from her home, but he pulled off this ruse and, during a raid on her home, went immediately to her bedroom. Knowing he was there to kill her, she made a dive for a night stand where she kept a gun, and an analysis of his first shot proved that he had not acted in self defense as he claimed. It took years to bring him to trial because of the reluctance of other officers to pursue justice in the case.

So what's the answer?

Obviously we could make police officers' careers more rewarding, pay them better, and do a lot better job of recruiting. Officers who show any sign of thinking their primary responsibility is to protect their own under all circumstances rather than serving and protecting the public should be re-evaluated and, if warranted, discharged. That's a long process, and it won't happen next year or in the next five years.

What can be done is to create, in each state, a division of the state police whose primary responsibility is to police the police. If I am being abused in some way by a police officer, a witness can call an alternative to 911. Say 811 or 922 or whatever. That goes immediately to this state police division which then dispatches officers on an emergency basis. If the local police or sheriff's deputies say "there's no problem," the state officers remain, observe, and make a report.

Will people abuse it? Some will of course. Someone who did so knowingly and maliciously should face charges for making a false police report. Perhaps at times it will be a matter of opinion. If I'm drunk and obnoxious, the police may think they're only restraining me, and my wife may think they've gone beyond necessary force and are committing aggravated battery. Sorry, but justice isn't always simple. Some will say this would tie the police's hands and prevent them from doing their jobs. I say it might make them think how much blood they want investigating officers from a different jurisdiction to find on me and my clothes, and officers who tend to act out of anger and frustration might decide to take a deep breath instead. Don't we have a right to expect as much of them as the law expects of the rest of us?

It would also help to pass a federal law against police abuse, making it a crime for one officer to cover the misdeeds of another or to fail to report a crime permitted by another officer. Drastic? Not in my opinion. Isn't respect for the law something America needs more of, at all levels?

And you see, fear of police and respect for the law are not the same thing. In fact, they work against each other.

If you disagree, please feel free to tell me. With what I've written here, I might have just made a lot of police officers hate my guts. But call me an idealist if you will, I think a lot more people who wear badges will think it's high time somebody got serious about this.

It happened in Florida recently. A strong and violent inmate jumped the 64-year-old security officer who was on duty alone at the jail and locked him in a strangle hold. In a few seconds, the guard could have been dead. Three other inmates came to his aid, saving his life. Some people will read that story and say "they just wanted to catch a break for themselves; they didn't give a good flying f---- about the guard's life." If that's what you assume automatically, you're part of the problem. Others will quickly say "it just shows that most people behind bars aren't bad at all, they're just victims of an unjust society." If that's your knee-jerk reaction, you're also part of the problem. When we stop looking for simplistic explanations and solutions, maybe we can start fixing some of America's serious problems.

Crime and how we deal with it is one of those serious problems. We have a violent crime rate that is shameful for an advanced, wealthy nation. We have more of our citizens behind bars than any other nation. About one in a hundred. Take everyone waiting for trial, and on probation or parole, and the portion jumps to one in thirty-seven. The average American household spends between $400 and $500 a year to keep people behind bars.

I believe the inmates-save-guard story demonstrates that not all offenders are cut out of the same cloth. Is that so difficult to understand? You'd think it's advanced rocket science considering that we let hard-core gang-bangers plea-bargain brutally violent crimes down to misdemeanors, that we are only beginning to apply everything behavioral science has taught us about rehabilitation programs, that we listen to pundits who say "rehabilitation doesn't work" but then elevate to hero status scumbags like Jack Abbott and Steve Stanko who happen to be slick and glib enough to charm gullible talking heads, that we lock out of jobs and educational programs people with long-past records of petty offenses . . .

A petty thief who steals to support a drug habit is not the same as a hard-core criminal who enjoys taking drugs, along with an occasional rape. A child molester is not the same as a shoplifter. A professional hot check artist who dislikes violence has little in common with the nine-to-five worker with a hot temper who periodically gets in brawls that put lives in danger, including his own. None of the preceding are necessarily similar to the flag-waving American who exercises his second amendment rights by keeping an arsenal in his bedroom, then blasts away the life of a neighbor he caught playing hoochy-koo with his wife.

We tend to paint all criminals with the same brush because it's easier and simpler, and cheaper in the short term, but it's much more expensive in the long term. We also tend to believe that anyone suspected of a crime is guilty, just like during the Inquisition. Too many police officers hold that belief and act on it, and we let them get by with it.

Acting as though all offenders and even accused offenders are stamped out of the same mold isn't just unfair. It helps keep our costs of incarceration so high, and our streets so dangerous.

Would we not all like to change that? What do you think? 

It shouldn't be a joking matter. Medicare fraud hits all of us in the pocketbook, and distracts us from streamlining and modernizing our decrepit healthcare system. Ironically, I remember when Medicare was first proposed, and there were those who screamed about "socialized medicine" then as now, who predicted that millions of larcenous seniors were going to abuse the system. Maybe they meant getting five more minutes with a physician than they were entitled to, but there was always that hint that somehow Grandpa would turn his physician's bills into a condo on the Riviera.

Sorry. It's not those cagey old codgers. It's physicians and other healthcare providers. I haven't heard recently of any hospital corporations defrauding Medicare, but since I know from personal experience that some routinely defraud their patients, I won't be shocked to learn that they victimize the taxpayers as well.

So, why shouldn't they? It's easy money, with very little risk. Just recently an Arizona man got two and a half years behind bars for stealing a quarter million. He had to pay it back, and after he serves his thirty months with however much time off for good behavior, he'll have a few years of probation. Still, when you compare that with the twenty years you can get for stealing $100 with a gun, or the life sentence you could get for a drug offense, it's a pretty high-profit low-risk business.

Another example from some years ago: A certain psychiatrist, who worked part-time in the same court-support agency with me, used to spend a few hours a week doing his private practice billing on his county payroll job. No problem, since it was during downtime. Then it turned out that some of that billing was to Medicare, and over $300,000 of it was fraudulent. Federal charges were filed and he was fired immediately by the circuit court, but it wasn't a great job anyway. I'm sure he had to pay back what he stole, and let's say he was fined a half million bucks (I don't know), but to my knowledge, he never spent a day behind bars.

To other successful psychiatrists whose total honest incomes might be a half million a year or more, that might not seem like a terrible risk. Just like, to the kid in the ghetto, a little time in prison might not seem so much worse than life on the streets.

Truthfully, I wouldn't do it, no matter what. A few years back I got a couple of louvred glass storm doors from a home center, without having paid more than a small deposit. I took the trouble to go to the store, insist they find the record of the sale, and let me pay what I owed. There was a time in my distant past when I certainly would have done no such thing! If you don't know what I'm talking about, check out my other website, going-straight.com For the last fifty years I don't take things that aren't mine, I don't steal from people, and I consider paying what I owe in taxes a patriotic duty. I hope that's true of you as well. But for anyone who is easily tempted, who just happens to have an MD or Psy.D. or RN after his or her name, or happens to own a hospital or medical supply company, or for any other reason submits charges to Medicare, the risk is too low.

I liked the guy down the hall, and it would be hard to think of him in a cell, but logically, I know that's what he deserved. When politicians talk about getting tough on crime, they usually mean getting tough on poor people who hurt rich people. I say it's time to get tough, very tough, on rich people who hurt all of us. Maybe in China they'd get a bullet to the back of the head. I don't advocate that. I do advocate giving them seriously long vacations at the Crossbars Resort.

There was a local bus stop by the train station in Des Plaines, IL, and there was a bus that went a couple of blocks from my house. The train I usually took from my job in downtown Chicago was one of the most popular, and dozens of commuters got off at that station. Cleverly, the last bus of the day was scheduled to leave, typically almost empty, just as that train was approaching. It would have been a long walk to my house, but not impossible, if there had just been sidewalks.

Many years later, my wife and I were destined to become apartment dwellers for a while. We briefly considered a nice complex, located, I believe, in Hillary Clinton's home town, Park Ridge. I still commuted to downtown Chicago frequently, and those apartments were located a healthy one-mile walk from the nearest Rapid Transit station. Or maybe not so healthy, since there was no sidewalk on either side of the road, a heavily travelled four-lane. Walking in the roadway would have suicidal. The option of walking to the train could have motivated us to choose an apartment there.

We're now residents of beautiful southwest Michigan, where we're known affectionately as FIP's, or "fxxxing Illinois people," but have a very modest second home in Chicago's northwest suburbs. When we're there, we often attend worship services at a location 1.83 miles away. Reasonably "walkable," and certainly "bikable," if there were sidewalks or a bike path all the way. Getting across the intersection of Highway 83 and Lake Cook Road on foot, especially after dark, is the stuff of action movies.

Chicago has now invested in "bike lanes." Ha! A yellow stripe in the right lane marks off a strip wide enough for a bicyclist, maybe even wide enough for one bicyclist to pass another. No barrier between cyclists and cars, only an occasional yellow symbol on the pavement supposedly reminding motorists that this lane is for bikes. In some areas cars have to drive across the bike lane to get to parking places, and at intersections it's a virtual open season on cyclists. Drivers regularly occupy bike lanes with impunity. Yet some brave souls do use them, mostly physically fit serious bicylists. There's little incentive for those who regularly go by car to switch to pedal power.

I'm talking specifically about Chicago and its suburbs because that's the part of the world I've known best since 1967, but I've observed similar situations in other parts of the country I've visited. Bicycling for fun is commonplace, but rare for practical purposes. In too many communities, sidewalks are unheard of. Intersections are friendly to neither cyclists or pedestrians.

I'm all for wind, solar, hydrogen power, electric cars, you name it. It will take many years and lots of money before we're ready to take full advantage of all of them. By comparison, making it practical, safe, and inviting to use the legs nature gave us is nickle and dime stuff. As a bonus, many of us would shed some of our blubber and thus spend less on healthcare.

This should be one of the priorities in our energy-independence efforts.

My friend Reinhard is a model naturalized American: skilled, hard-working, patriotic, all-around good citizen. Now he still loves America, but believes he made a mistake in staying here because he has joined the ranks of the uninsured, and knows that any serious illness could leave him penniless, after a lifetime of responsible planning and saving. Here is his response after I sent him a link to a Steven Colbert monologue on our healthcare morass:

We just have to come together on this. In this great nation, it's not right that people have to bankrupt themselves to pay medical bills, that some people even die for lack of healthcare. We have to put aside the boogeyman scares and join the other advanced nations in guaranteeing adequate healthcare for all our citizens.

Sex is a powerful drive, and humans are the most sexually driven species on earth. Although we could now argue that humans are the most successful species on earth, we can just as believably argue that we are the most fragile, and as recently as early biblical times, our very survival was tenuous. With a gestation period of nine months, a typical litter size of one, and a high infant mortality rate, it was that constant urge to "get it on" that assured a birth rate that at least matched the death rate. Can you imagine a real Wilma Flintstone telling Fred "We really need to start to work on another human being. I won’t be as much help for a while, and the business of popping him out will be a bitch, and it just might kill me, and he’ll probably be dead before he’s old enough to be very useful and meanwhile we’ll have to work even harder with our hunting and gathering. But someday, Fred, they’ll honor us for helping our species survive and people will make funny cartoons about us."

More likely it was something like "I’m still hungry and this cave is never warm enough. How about we do that thing again where you [well, we can omit the details, right? and I’m not sure exactly how cave people did it anyway] and we won’t feel cold and hungry for a while."

To which Fred probably said "I’m ready, Wilma. You are just soooo cute in those woolly mammoth-ear slippers. Hey, did you know that guy who rubs sticks together says that babies come from [don’t worry, I’m not going to describe it]."

"Those damned scientists. Next thing they’ll be telling us that it’s tiny bugs that make us sick."

Or if you prefer the Adam and Eve story, well, OK, you can imagine a comparable version, with the first two humans glumly leaving the Garden of Eden with the sex manual that God thoughtfully provided, trying to figure out what the reference to "children" meant.

Anything as universally powerful as sex is going to be subject to rules and regulations. Whether you like it or not, that’s the way it is. People don’t always agree on them. That’s another fact of life we have to live with. In the Judeo-Christian world, a guy named the Apostle Paul (who didn’t care much for women, according to most exegetes) decided that sex between unmarried people was a terrible sin, equal in gravity to adultery. That was new, and Jesus is never quoted as having objected to sex outside of marriage, but most branches of Christianity have run with it, and extreme Islam has treated it as a death penalty offense.

Meanwhile, back in the real world, that urge is strong as ever, but childbirth isn’t as much of a horror as it used to be, at least in places where women are treated as human beings and allowed adequate medical care. In advanced nations the majority of infants do survive to adulthood, and our species is, if anything, in danger of overpopulating our planet, rather than dying out because of insufficient replacement.

Recreational sex has never been as rare as many people think. It’s been relatively commonplace throughout history, as have various forms of contraception and abortion. In modern society, though, sexuality is more supercharged than ever. The onset of puberty is coming earlier and earlier, yet the age at which a young person can be truly self sufficient comes later and later.

It is now possible, and increasingly commonplace, for children of ten or eleven, or even younger, to procreate. It’s also possible with contraceptives for equally young children to be vigorously active sexually, with highly reduced chance of pregnancy resulting. When the contraceptives fail, as contraceptives do, where it is legal abortion is safer than ever. Please note that I am NOT saying that this is good; only that it is true.

When pre-pubertal children played doctor and nurse, the worst that was likely to occur was horrified parents and, sadly, sometimes bestially cruel punishment. When pubescent children experiment, however young they may be, biology may lead to very different results. I.e., pregnancy.

I personally cannot equate a fertilized egg with a human being, and certainly cannot fathom the belief that a fertilized egg has the same rights as a nine or ten year old child, or any living human being, for that matter. If you believe otherwise, that is your right, so long as you do not force it on me or anyone else. I know this will make some parents furious, but honestly, I do not think you have the right to force that belief on your pregnant daughter. At the same time, I cannot in good conscience say that a child who is too young to sign a legal contract should be able to demand a serious surgical procedure such as abortion as easily as buying a package of bubble gum. Our concepts of when adult responsibility begins are always troubled. They vary from time to time and place to place. Early in the 20^{th century, laws were passed in some American cities making it illegal to prostitute a child younger than nine! The age of consent in Michigan is sixteen, but if you show a pornographic picture to the 16-year-old you’re having sex with, you’re committing a felony. Children in their early teens can be tried as adults, but can’t buy alcohol legally. In fact, young Americans can be sent to die defending their nation when we’re under attack (or at the whim of a delusional president) as much as four years before they can legally buy a can of beer.}

What's bad about our postal service is mostly in our heads. The truth is, it's a model of efficiency. It makes BIG news when a postal carrier ditches mail somewhere instead of delivering it, because it's so rare. Of course it's tragic when someone gets a letter that could have changed his or her life for the better thirty years late, and each of those cases always makes national news, also because it's so rare. "Going postal" has become a synonym for "going ballistic," but on a per-employee basis, acts of violence in the workplace are below average in the postal service.

There is one thing that's a major pain, in my opinion.

It's not the honesty of the employees. In some places, it's commonplace for postal employees to help themselves to valuables sent by mail, but in spite of how curiously commonplace crime is in our advanced nation, it almost never happens here. When it does, the thief can get up to five years in prison for the first offense.

The rates are very favorable. As I've said elsewhere, try to get UPS or Fed-Ex to deliver a letter across the nation for you in two days for forty-three cents, or whatever the rate is today.

And that leads to what I'd like to change. I hate not knowing what it will cost me to mail a letter next week or next month. In other advanced nations, the cost of a first-class stamp doesn't change every few weeks. Our representatives made the same mistake here they made by "protecting" Canadian geese, that now need protection about as much as mosquitoes: They saw a need, they acted on it, and when the solution backfired, they were paralyzed.

In this case, it's not the USPS' fault. It's congress'. Postal rates are indexed to the actual cost of providing the service. Terrific idea. I'm in favor of indexing. Part of my retirement income is Social Security. A small part, in fact, but it helps, and there are periodic increases as the purchasing power of my SS checks goes down. But what I get this month is the same as last month, whether my local supermarket is selling buns and hot dogs and beer for the same prices or not.

Yeah, there are now "forever" stamps, and they're a convenience, just not a good investment. Theoretically, I could buy thousands of dollars worth of forever stamps, and in that way, my cost to mail the first ounce of a first-class letter would not go up until I'd used up my supply. But I'd be depriving myself of the use of that money for other purposes.

Here's a simple idea, although I'm sure congress can make it complicated: Make the next increase to an even number, like fifty cents. LEAVE it there, and leave all other fees at steady rates also. Initially, that will provide a surplus. As costs increase, the USPS can operate on the money it continues to take in, plus the surplus. Before the surplus is depleted, raise the fees again, this time to sixty cents for the first ounce, with corresponding increases for everything else, and thus begin the cycle again.

I'm sure some people won't like this for the obvious reason that it will cost extra at first. Over the long haul, it would average out, however, and would remove a major nuisance from our private and business lives.

And then we could think about that other problem with our postal service: Junk mail!

The official name of the former East Germany was the German Democratic Republic, but we’re not running in horror from democracy. We know that wasn’t what a democracy is really about. There’s another label that’s being misused these days, that is, socialism. It’s a scare word because those nasty old commies called their "evil empire" the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, and blathered constantly about how well "socialism" was working there. Well, it wasn’t really socialism – it was feudalism, pure and simple, managed by a totalitarian government, and it didn’t work well at all.

There can be reasonable differences of opinion as to what government should and should not do for us. If a democracy – the real thing – operates properly, we govern ourselves through our elected representatives. We pay taxes, and those taxes are used to provide for the general well-being of our people. We decide what that includes, sometimes after loud and rancorous debate.

Sometimes the issue of the proper role of government gets lost. We build walls, not bridges.

Truth is, some decisions made by government bureaucrats are disastrous, and so are some decisions made by major corporations. Fed-Ex and UPS are fine services, but sometimes they make major blunders, and neither one of them can deliver a letter across the country in a couple of days for forty four cents.

The point is, we shouldn’t avoid serious decision making by using scare labels. The "socialist" label could easily be applied to the United States Postal Service, to public education, to public highways and public transportation, to Medicare and Social Security, public parks, and to dozens of other operations of the federal as well as state and local governments.

An individual, a society, or a nation must continually learn, mature, and adapt. In our days, changes are going to take place, in our healthcare, our financial systems, our manufacturing sector, our law enforcement and corrections, our public transportation, our energy policies, i.e., throughout our society. Please, let’s not be panicked by the idea that some change we contemplate can be labeled socialist by someone who doesn’t happen to like it. It wouldn’t be the American way to react with ANTI-social hostility to anything new.

We Americans can get emotional about personal freedom. Operating a motorcycle can be, in itself, an emotional experience. Take it from me, opening up my V-twin Honda, with only 500-cc displacement, at full throttle, back when I was a mere youngster of fifty, was a major thrill. Getting an aggressive wasp inside my jean jacket on a sharp curve of a two-lane road evoked another strong emotion called terror – I’m still amazed that I brought the machine to a safe stop while the little bastard stung me four or five time. So it’s understandable that some bikers love the feeling of the wind in their hair and say it’s no one’s business but their own if they ride without a helmet. I suggest they stand in front of a fan, because they’re wrong, and here’s why:

Years ago I was riding my cycle up Milwaukee Avenue, in a suit, attache case strapped to the luggage rack, when a driver suddenly pulled out from the curb and clipped my rear. It could have sent me headfirst into oncoming traffic; I managed to steer away from that, but couldn’t help going down. The other driver was a nice guy who just miscalculated the speed of my cycle, a fairly common problem.

Because of my case guards and luggage rack, I avoided a broken hip, barely. My helmet left a streak of red paint five feet long on the pavement, but my brain remained in its original container. As a result:

- Traffic was held up for five or ten minutes, not a half hour to an hour;

- The officer who came was able to enjoy her supper that evening;

- The man who hit me was charged with only a minor offense;

- His insurance company just bought me a new suit and paid to fix up my cycle, and;

- They paid only a few hundred for my pain and suffering, and I really didn’t deserve more;

- I was at work the next morning. My accident didn’t cause a backlog at my job;

- I continued to support myself and pay my taxes;

- You, as a taxpayer, didn’t pay hundreds of thousands in disability and rehabilitation.

All because I was wearing a helmet.

You see, we live in something called a civilization. Inevitably, many of the decisions you make for yourself will have an impact on me and other citizens. Some states still pretend that not wearing a helmet is a personal decision for a motorcyclist. That is a very misguided attitude. Helmet laws protect everyone, not just those who wear the helmets.

In my article of April 17, I told you that our criminal justice system is broken. We lock up too many people for too long for too many reasons and spend ‘WAY too much money on prisons. We’ve fallen hard and expensively for that seductive promise to "get tough" on crime, without even thinking of the option of getting smart about dealing with our crime problem. I also told you that finally, some positive changes were taking place, and said that we can and should do more, faster.

But what?

Some communities have taken bold steps to make it easier for released felons to find legitimate employment. The City of New Haven, Connecticut, has banned the "Have you ever been convicted of a felony?" question in its application forms for municipal jobs. If the applicant is offered a job, his or her record is discovered, and only then is it discussed to determine if the person’s own particular history reasonably should be a concern for the particular job offered. I would imagine a history of sexual abuse of children would be an absolute obstacle for a school bus driver, and a history of forgery and embezzlement would cause some major concerns if someone is offered a job in the city payroll office. Those are logical, legitimate concerns.

On the other hand, unceremoniously slamming the door in the face of anyone who’s ever been convicted of any felony simply makes life more desperate for that person and discourages him or her from trying to become a productive member of society.

California is making use of a multi-pronged program to provide housing, life skills training, and practical support for those recently released from prison. Results? Only half as many of those who have received this intervention return to prison as would otherwise be predicted.

The State of Washington has an admirable record for research in corrections effectiveness. In one meta-analysis, researchers looked at the cost savings to taxpayers of rehabilitation programs in prisons, not just in their own state, but across the county. On average, vocational education programs result in savings (after deducting the cost of administering the program) of $13,738 for each participant, general education $10,669, intensive supervision in treatment-oriented programs $11,653. There are those who think that any kind of rehabilitation program amounts to "coddling criminals." That is insane. Programs like these actually make more demands of prisoners than the human warehouse / crime school prison, and they give back to the tax payers some of the fortune we now spend on imprisonment.

I have long proclaimed that early intervention can help prevent troublesome young people from becoming long-term criminals. One of the effects of our "get tough" mania has been that prisons have filled faster than we can build them. In some areas, juvenile offenders are routinely given probation repeatedly, because judges know that institutions have no space for them. In a few communities, High Point, NC, for one, police are working to sort out the most hard-core juvenile offenders and offer the remainder referrals to job training programs instead of court. Judges, with fewer juvenile offenders to adjudicate, can send them to institutions where, hopefully, their behavior patterns can be altered before they become deeply ingrained. From early results it appears that those given job training referrals are taking advantage of the opportunity to avoid imprisonment.

Another form of early intervention is removing the juvenile offender from his or her home environment in favor of a multi-dimensional treatment-oriented foster care program. This is more expensive than simply sending the child to a standard foster care home, but the savings in reduction of long-term criminal activities and their costs to taxpayers amount to $77,798 for each child!

What I’ve touched on here are only some of the more obvious changes that can be made, those in which benefits can be documented. There are hundreds of others. For example:

Stop making "sex offenders" out of 18-year-olds for having consensual sex with 15- to 17-year-olds.

Get rid of the "three strikes" laws. A person convicted of a third shoplifting offense isn’t a serious threat to society.

Make better use of probation, sooner. Don’t save money by reducing the number of probation officers on the job – as a misguided governor of Illinois did some years back – only to spend many times more to build additional prisons.

Put more emphasis on rehabilitation. Of course it doesn’t work 100% with everyone, but neither does penicillin! Every offender who turns his or her life around makes our society a little safer and saves tax dollars that can be put to better use than incarceration.

Use innovative corrections, such as community service, more frequently and make sure it’s applied intelligently.

Make parole boards professional panels that include forensic scientists. Parole boards whose seats are used as political plums are not qualified to distinguish between glib psychopaths and offenders who are truly amenable to change.

Start a serious, dispassionate examination of our drug laws. It won’t be quick or easy, but our current approach is funneling money to violent street gangs and guns to Latin American drug cartels, and filling our courts and prisons. It’s a move we’ve put off far too long.

America is a great nation, but sometimes our problems are also great. This is one of them, and it affects all of us.

Paul Karsten Fauteck, Psy.D.