Monday, July 25, 2011

Placing Blame

I was distressed to hear about the poor girl who was shot and killed on Green and Basin the other night and have been following the several articles in the news as the investigation continues.  I was reading through the comments from one of the articles on the Times Herald website for that article, and was a  little taken back by one of comments which refered that Council was not doing their job because of the recent spate of crime going on in the municipality. 

My question to that sentiment is how and what can be done by Council to thwart crime?  Council makes the laws in the town and there are fairly stringent laws already on the books about crime both on the local level and the federal level.  No matter how many laws are created, there is frankly nothing that can be done if the law cannot be enforced.  Council can’t find the perpetrator of the crime against Dominique Devlin or anyone else for that matter.  That’s the police job, and they are doing the best they can.  The same people who are arguing about Council not doing their job are probably not talking about the crime if they know anything to help the police find the shooter.  What are new laws going to do? What do these people expect Council to do?

I am sure that there is extreme frustration out there because of the crime and people are frightened.  But more laws on the books are not going to fix the problem.  Council has the power to create the laws, but they don’t have the power to stop those who are breaking the laws.  They have the power to request the police to enforce the laws, but the police can’t enforce them if they can’t find the person or persons who commit the crimes.  Let’s blame the crime on the people who are responsible for the crime, not the governmental body who write the laws.

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