gardenofsound wrote:
I think it goes far beyond drugs, sadly.
Predatory/discriminatory real estate practices (kind of the root cause historically)
Discriminatory hiring practices
Lack of accessible, high quality schooling
Lack of available parents...
- lots of parents end up in prison
- it's extremely hard to be a single parent, particularly with so many negative influences ready to fill the gaps.
Limited positive interactions with police
Ease of access to guns (Indiana and Wisconsin)
Honestly, the only reason drugs are a part of the equation is because it's the most direct, accessible, and realistic way for many of these people to make money and earn respect.
The only reason???? You don't think countless people abusing drugs is a big problem that, for example, heavily correlates with bad and/or absentee parenting?
Also, I'm not sure that this even can be true. Yes selling drugs is thought of as a way to make easy money, and as a way to earn street cred in bad areas, but from what I've read, IIRC, entry level drug market employees earn next to nothing, and numbers wise, I don't really think it's possible that such people outnumber honest working people.
But respect is a key word. The wrong types of actions are respected while truly respectable ways of living are laughed at or scoffed at. Though this is a problem everywhere in the US IMO.
I don't think a harder stick will cure this problem. I think you need to present real, tangible, feasible ways to earn respect and money.
Idk, the countries with the most severe drug penalties, IIRC, have basically low level or non existent drug problems, and a number of these are very poor countries where people live not only a poorer lifestyle than Chicagoans, but also live under a greater wealth disparity than Chicagoans.
I'm in Oak Park. Two miles east is Austin. A lot of the real estate is similar... I mean, Austin has some REALLY nice homes.
There are a lot of differences between the two communities.
You know what I think goes a long way?
Change the way public schools are funded so that the funding comes from the state, not local property taxes. There's no real reason OPRF should be getting so much more money than CPS schools in struggling neighborhoods. The way it is now, poor neighborhoods put less money into schools and richer neighborhood puts more money. It let's stratification continue to spiral as the rich get richer, the poor get poorer. Equal opportunity my ass.
Yes, this is well worth looking at. I checked out the spending per pupil of three districts. Oak Park, Chicago, and an affluent suburb near me. Oak park had seemingly extremely high expenditures, but the affluent district bear me barely exceeded chicago in spending. I'm not sure spending per pupil is actually all that big of a problem anymore tbh.
I've read and heard some criticism of no child left behind educational policies and how they kill students with potential in bad districts. I don't know enough about it myself to have a strong opinion, but it's worth considering.
Your concerns are legit but IMO, basically treat the violence as inseparable from general economic and quality of living issues. I think approaching it from that broad of a perspective is too ambitious IMO. Not in general, but specifically with regards to the violence.
As for discriminatory hiring and housing practices, just curious, do you mean within the most violent communities, or outside of them?