Beyond FACTS: THE COLOR OF JUSTICE

William Bennett’s comment regarding black babies and the crime rate has been called many things, from fine within the context of his spiel to inappropriate to insensitive to inexcusable. Whatever your take on his choice of wording (and its context), consider the possibility that the current hot topic of race and crime deserves your attention. Then check your library for THE COLOR OF JUSTICE by Samuel Walker, Cassia Spohn, and Mirian DeLone. All the authors are professors in the Department of Criminology at the University of Nebraska, Omaha, recently listed as one of the top ten schools of criminology in America by US News & World Report. One of the authors, Cassia Spohn, has just been named chairperson of that prestigious department.

While I’m certainly no expert on race and society, I can’t help but connect the desperate conditions of our inner-city schools (see the September 20 post on Jonathan Kozol’s SHAME OF THE NATION) with the disparate rate of people of color who live in poverty, behind bars, or on death row in our noble country. This can’t be corrected overnight, but it seems a few simple things can be done to put us on the right track to a viable long-term solution: Let’s put funds back into neglected early eductaion, intervention, and counseling programs in our communities. Let’s cut through the red tape that’s made the No Child Left Behind goal a pipe dream. And let’s give children in every demographic decent schools where they not only learn but are loved and learn to love. While we’re at it, let’s support abused women and their children and show the world how compassionate we can be. Maybe then we can some day reduce the number of people in our own country who feel so disenfranchised and abandoned that they become criminals.

You can quote me on that...in or out of context...all you like.