On Crime

I'm a hard-core liberal on crime, as on most things. I firmly believe that if we abolished poverty, abuse, and neglect (and abolishing the first would go a long way toward eliminating the rest), crime rates would plummet. Sure there would still be psychopaths--and I do believe there are psychopaths--and crimes of passion and stupid shit, but kids wouldn't go around shooting each other, and drug addicts wouldn't break into houses, and, well, a lot of bad stuff would not happen.

And yet, even though I so firmly believe this (and it's not just belief; there's proof), and even though I know the answer to my question, sometimes I just want to scream WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE?! You people being not any particular group, but the specific individuals who perpetrate unspeakable acts of violence. Like this one. And like the idiot girls who threatened to kill one of S's cooks, an eighteen-year-old girl who lives on one of the worst streets in East Coast Big City, and has two brothers in jail, and has managed to finish high school and get herself a full-time job in which she excels, yet needs to face this stupid jealousy and rage, which might once have netted her a nasty note, or maybe even a catfight at a party, but now had the police coming to the restaurant and everyone on guard, because kids are killing kids all over East Coast Big City, and it is just so sad. And so wrong.