BETTER TO SOLVE OUR HUMAN ISSUES DOWNTOWN, FIRST

To the Editor,

I thought that Darrell Bellaart's article (Private police force
mulled, May 30) made some important points. Although a private police
force would decrease the visible homeless and troublemakers, it would
not solve the less visible reasons that problems with these people
are increasing.

As the sergeant quoted in the article pointed out, people are often
homeless because of mental illness and addictions. Provincially, we
need better mental health services and counselling or rehabilitation
for the addicted. As a society we need even more.

We need to prevent these problems through creating healthy children.
We need to nurture their self-esteem and hear what they have to say.
Through this we can recognize developing mental health problems and
respond quickly.

This early intervention gives children a greater chance of becoming
mentally healthy adults. The same principle works with addiction.

Pleasure-seeking is universal. We need to encourage positive forms of
pleasure-seeking - hobbies, exercise, laughter - and teach our
children to recognize and stop pleasure-seeking that becomes
destructive. This way they won't become addicts.

In addition, we need to look at our own behaviours, because we're our
children's biggest role models.

If we as individuals make these small changes in our lives, years
from now we won't have as many homeless people and troublemakers, and
a private police force won't be necessary.

If we keep ignoring our kids and blaming their actions on media,
violence and random uncontrollable factors, we'll need much more than
a private police force to control attacks from the violent and
distressed - we'll need an army.

Galina Pembroke,

via e-mail